The BlogBurst service from Pluck will pay people who place highly on its leaderboard of active bloggers, but there is a catch that has participants concerned.

BlogBurst syndicates blog posts to a variety of name-brand publishers, like Gannett, the Washington Post, and SF Gate. Bloggers gained exposure from the service, and BlogBurst wants to reward the top performers with cash.

The launch of the BlogBurst rewards program makes financial compensation part of the deal. Those who place within the top 100 performers each quarter would make from $50 to $1,500.

Pete Cashmore at Mashable caught the caveat that has some BlogBurst participants unhappy with the new program:

Payments will be made via check or Paypal, they say. There is, however, a major drawback: only US bloggers are eligible. What's more, you need to opt-in to the rewards program to get paid.
Some of those top 100 performers are located outside the US. A few of them commented on BlogBurst's announcement post about their displeasure.

Paul Sutherland wrote how he felt he has been "led up the garden path. All the while there has been dangled the carrot that there will be payment after the beta period."

Razib Ahmed's blog ranks in BlogBurst's top 50, but there won't be a payoff for him. And Darren Barefoot wondered why a Canadian like himself can't be paid for being in the top 100:

It's easier to deal with international payments to Canadians than, say, Kenya. I know, because I do it both ways quite regularly.
Regardless, the exclusion of foreign blogs from the payment scheme but their inclusion in the Top 100 is a bit bizarre. Not being paid obviously eliminates all of the motivation to participate in this program.
BlogBurst has defended their Rewards model by pointing out what it does provide to participants, including headline impressions and post views. These can drive referral rates, which BlogBurst claims to have observed running between 8 and 20 percent.

The company did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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Tag: BlogBurst

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Adobe announced this week that it has contributed source code for the ActionScript Virtual Machine to the Mozilla Foundation as part of a new open source project entitled Tamarin.

The Tamarin project is aimed at developing new and exciting interactive applications as part of the industry's climb toward the almost mythical destination of Web 2.0.

Of course, Mozilla isn't the only developer that might be interested in getting a peek at the ActionScript source code. Conspicuously absent from the discussion, however, were Microsoft and Operasoft, both of which also tout browsers that would see great benefit from an open source partnership with Adobe.

Adobe maintains that the announcement is not indicative of an exclusive partnership with Mozilla's Firefox browser.

In talking with Adobe's Matt Rozen, he comments on Firefox and how the idea for the venture came about, "The project really started from the top of the two organizations - with the ActionScript Virtual Machine based on JavaScript and the creator of JavaScript at Mozilla, I think that played into it."

"And although this relationship isn't specifically about implementing the open sourced code into Firefox, Firefox is popular with users and developers. According to 3rd party firms such as One Stat and Net Applications, Firefox's market share is between 12 and 16 percent in the US. And according to Mozilla, some European countries are as high as 30 percent."

Rozen adds, "I'm not sure whether Adobe considered any other organizations to open source the code to -- I do know that Adobe and Mozilla have been working together on the spec for a while now. This didn't happen overnight."

As part of my conversation with Adobe about the Tamarin project I also got the chance to hear from Pam Deziel, Director of Product Marketing for the Platform Business Unit at Adobe.

She elaborates on the nature of the Adobe/Mozilla partnership, "This is an open source project in conjunction with the Mozilla foundation; it isn't specifically a relationship with the Firefox browser and other technologies created by the Mozilla Corporation technologies."

"The Tamarin project will be hosted by the Mozilla Foundation. Adobe contributed source code from the ActionScript Virtual Machine in the hopes that Adobe, Mozilla and the greater developer community will create the ECMAScript, 4th edition -- a high performance, standards-compliant scripting engine, to accelerate the ability of developers to create and deliver richer, more interactive and engaging experiences that work across multiple platforms."

Deziel continues, "The Tamarin project is an opportunity to help advance the open Internet by broadening its reach, improving the secure engagement of rich content and empowering millions of developers to evolve the technology we are contributing. Microsoft and Operasoft are welcome to implement Tamarin as the scripting language engine in their browsers."

Inquiries to both Microsoft and Operasoft have thus far gone unanswered, but I'm willing to wager that both companies are more than casually interested in what ActionScript Virual Machine can bring to the development table of their respective web applications.

And at least from appearances, Adobe has extended an open invitation to both companies to incorporate Tamarin into both the Internet Explorer and Opera browsers.

It will be interesting to see if Mozilla, Microsoft and Operasoft can all make nice and play well together in the Web 2.0 sandbox.

Tags: Adobe, Mozilla, Microsoft, Opera, Tamarin

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So what's your pleasure? What are you specifically looking for on the Internet and where do you go to find it? Does everyone consider himself or herself a ‘Googler' or are there alternative and more specific ways of searching for specialized desires or merchandise?

These are legitimate questions for both the Internet business owner and the searching consumer. And all of us are ‘searchers' at one time or another on the Net. Of course we all know the top dogs of the search engine world: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. But like garage bands determined to break into the mainstream recording industry with a hit song, there's always underdogs who will challenge the established order of ‘The Big Guys' and search engine competition is no exception.

While Google is aware of these competing Vertical Search Engines (defined on Wikipedia as ‘part of a larger subgrouping known as "specialized" search, these are relatively new tiers in the Internet search industry consisting of search engines that focus on specific businesses), the company already has many topic-specific searches integrated into its applications like Google Maps, Google Co-op, and more.

But this hasn't stopped an onslaught of saavy entreupeneurs from taking their best niche specific ideas into the search engine world with sometimes profitable results. This week, AOL announced the purchase of Relegence, a New York-based search engine specializing in financial news and information for an undisclosed price. Collarity CompassT launched earlier in the week and in a press release describes itself as "being a search engine that automatically ranks search results based on an individual's interests. By tracking the search terms, url choices, and selections of users and visitors, Collarity responds to a user's 'hot spot of interest' (i.e. query) with sites visited by expert-users in that area."

The search company Riya just launched its visual search engine Like.com, based on appearance in addition to text. The Like engine is particularly apt at finding consumer products that provide, as ZDNet describes, "visual similarity shopping." Riya found product hunting was a more popular application of their technology among users than facial recognition search, which they tested on MySpace.

What specialized search engine operators are banking on is the hope that as the Web becomes an integral part of modern day living, everyone will want to focus more specifically on their own personal needs and interests. For example, avid shoppers might prefer Become.com, a shopping VSE that offers 180 + search site focusing on the best products, deals and price comparisons. Simply Hired offers the largest online database of jobs around the world. There are VSEs covering everything from horror movies, music, real estate, healthcare, travel, television, and…well, you get the idea, there is no limit.

Yet it's not easy for upstart VSEs to gain a foot in the market. Even if the specific content and overall user experience surpasses the major search engines, there's still the issues of getting the word out to the public in an overcrowded market and the age old obstacles of marketing and promotional expenses that owners must contend with. The best successes seem to stem from strong word of mouth from early loyal die-hard fans, which can sometimes snowball into much bigger (and profitable) successes.

Only time will tell which of the upstart VSEs will be successful (or purchased by one of the search engine ‘Giants"), but one thing is for certain…they won't stop cropping up anytime soon.

Tag: Search Engines

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Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have all been blasted for cooperating with the Chinese government, but this time Yahoo was alone in the hot water. Reporters Without Borders is angry with the search engine company for its willingness to "snitch" on Chinese dissidents.

"Earlier this year the firm gave up details on two journalists who had highlighted plans to squash commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre," The Register's Chris Williams reported. The international organization, which "is an association officially recognised as serving the public interest," was not pleased.

"We have . . . once again seen that the way Yahoo! compromises its principles in China provokes a reaction of deeply-felt disapproval. It is high time this corporation took concrete steps to respect press freedom," declared a Reporters Without Borders statement.

Our very own David Utter wrote about the group's protest, which "singled out Yahoo's Jerry Yang for specific complaints . . . " A range of other sources, from individual reporters to large groups such as Amnesty International, have also covered (or taken part in) the story. A search for [Yahoo] on the Amnesty International site yields what might be an embarrassing number of results - 336 (although [Google] and [Microsoft] return 734 and 737, respectively).

Yahoo has had some other bitter dealings in China, as well. The company recently filed a second lawsuit against Qihoo, a rival portal. The dispute is becoming quite heated, with terms like "evil" and "personal vendettas" being thrown around.

The Chinese market is a big one, though. Yahoo doesn't seem to mind stepping on a few toes in order to gain its share.

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Tag: Yahoo

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CBS is looking to buy the next YouTube. Just which site that will be is the billion-dollar question. The front-runners could be Blinkx, which boasts 6 million hours of video, blip.tv or Veho. Also there is a start up called The Venice Project, which could launch before the end of this year.

Leslie Moonves CBS Chief Executive says they have plans to buy the next video-sharing site. They have hired investment banker Quincy Smith to find the next YouTube.

In a Los Angeles Times article Smith said, "I appreciate the pressure". The company has named him the president of their new Interactive division. According to the Times article CBS has $3 billion to burn to try and make a move on the digital media front.

The buzz surrounding the next trend in digital media is sites will team with legitimate media to create the next big video giant. The days of video piracy are on their way out.
This commercialization of web video will be great for big business but maybe not so great for viewers who do not want to watch more advertisements.

Media companies like CBS are eager to find Internet assets that will be good for them in the long term. As more and more advertising dollars are moving away from TV and radio into the Internet world the more valuable video sites will become.

In an interview with Mike Hudak from blip.tv he told WebProNews that he saw video content changing from what YouTube does to more sites offering episodic original content, which is what blip.tv, does now.

He did not think any company out there would want to go through the legal issues of copyright infringement like Google has encountered with their YouTube purchase.

On who will be the next YouTube Hudak said, "I think we have the magic combo"

Just how many other companies will follow CBS's lead is another question. What will the other network broadcasting companies' do? How many video sites will partner with major media sites and how many will be able to maintain profitability?

It will be interesting to see what CBS does in the next few months. The hunt for the next YouTube is certainly an intriguing idea. What direction web video will take and what other major media players will get involved will be a compelling storyline to follow.

Tag: Web Video

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Linksys and Yahoo have partnered to create a new must-have for fans of Yahoo Messenger. The Linksys Dual-Mode Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (CIT310), which could really use a shorter name, is now available. Initial reviews are fairly positive.

The Linksys CIT310 is probably only a "must-have" for Yahoo messenger fanatics who are in need of a new phone, though. Randy Savicky describes it as "a tempting home phone system replacement," but raises a couple of issues in his "Room for Improvement" section." Our own Joe Lewis compares this arrangement to the Skype service.

Linksys seems quite proud of its new phone, regardless. "The CIT310 is our first product to couple the Yahoo! Messenger with Voice experience and access to Internet services like Yahoo! Local Search," noted Tarun Loomba, a senior director of product marketing for Linksys, in an official statement.

"We share the same vision with Yahoo! of not just improving the experience of internet phone calling, but also offering a valuable combination of internet-enabled features and services that customers will use and really want," he added.

Jeff Bonforte, senior director of Yahoo's Real Time Communications, was proud of one feature in particular, saying, "The CIT310 cordless phone is also embedded with the industry-leading Yahoo! Local Search service, to provide consumers with an easy way to find local restaurants and businesses and quickly make a call with one touch."

The CIT310 is available on Amazon.com, where the current first and last tags for it are "voip" and "cool," respectively. Yahoo and Linksys have to be happy about that.

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Tag: Yahoo, Tag: Linksys

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Proving that Microsoft is not the monopoly in all aspects of computer technology, the company has reached an agreement that they hope will help the Zune digital music player compete with Apple iPod.

Attempting to compete with Apple Computer's digital music player the iPod, Microsoft announced a deal to pay a percentage of the sale from Zune players to Universal Music Group.

Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi, accounts for a third of music sales in the United States. They represent a diverse range of artists from 2Pac to Bon Jovi, and own the rights to some of the most popular music in the US.

Without the deal the release of the digital music player Zune, set for November 14th in the US, was said to be unable to compete with Apple's iPod. Without the agreement, Microsoft would not have permission to sell Universal artist's music.

The deal, which was announced yesterday, will not only benefit the Universal label itself but also the artists. The artists will receive half of the monetary assets Universal acquires from the online sales of their music. Universal music is said to be receiving $1 for every $250 Zune device that Microsoft sells.

Universal currently receives royalties from Apple iTunes sales and eventually hope to receive a percentage of sales from the Apple iPod.

Universal wishes to receive monetary compensation from iPod based on the fact that over 95% of the music stored on the device is either downloaded illegally, or ripped from a CD by the owner.

Perhaps Apple Computers should worry about the user-friendly image that the sharing of profits with artists will bring to Microsoft. Recently a study concluded that 58% of iPod owners were considering switching to Zune in the next year.

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Thanks to modern technology, a person can shop from pretty much anywhere, at any time. This person - a retailer's dream - is known as the "Anywhere Consumer."

The Yankee Group's Emily Green delivered a keynote on the subject at ad:Tech; Lisa Barone of Bruce Clay, Inc. reported on the address. According to Green, a "Trinity" of factors is (in part) responsible for the creation of the Anywhere Consumer.

Mobility is the first component - Barone writes that it "extends the value of all consumer services, like voice, messaging, imaging, audio, video, socializing, etc." Network applications come next, because "the computer has developed into our network, while the Web has been demoted into the content platform."

The last part of Green's "Trinity" is mobile TV, which has apparently taken off in the Korea (a leading tech market). "An interesting study . . . found that drama and music videos far surpassed news and sports for preferred genres. Most surprisingly, the average viewing time was 20-30 minutes - that's a full episode of television!"

The spread of "anywhereness," as Green called it, will in some ways benefit consumers. "Users are showing a need for media to be fluid. They want to be able to download music and video and be able to listen to it on a variety of platforms. Media can no longer be anchored." There will be some ramifications that don't seem quite so positive, however. "Users have to work at not being reachable, instead of the other way around."

Still, the Anywhere Consumer may find the convenience worth the bother. It all comes down to price - "the biggest challenge right now for mobile," according to Barone, "is that many users find it too expensive."

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Tag: Anywhere Consumer

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Technorati's blog tracking system has found 100,000 blogs were created in the third quarter of 2006, and 55 percent of all blogs were active enough to have been updated with a new post at least once every three months.

Technorati founder Dave Sifry posted his latest quarterly assessment, the State of the Blogosphere, and revealed nearly 3 million blogs debuted from July through September.

The persistent issue of spam blogs or "splogs" has been vexing for Technorati, for creators of legitimate blogs, and for people who become frustrated when a search leads them to a blog that is nothing more than a keyword stuffed ad-fest with little to no quality content.

Sifry claimed Technorati's indexing has matured, and has begun to mitigate the impact of splog creation hitting the index. He noted that the 100,000 blogs indexed per day has dropped from June's peak of 160,000 due to the reduction of splog indexing.

"While last quarter I reported about 8% of new blogs that get past our filters and make it into the index are splogs, I'm happy to report that that number is now more like 4%," Sifry wrote. "My gut feeling is that since we're better at dealing with Spam now."

New posts hit blogs at a rate of about 1.3 million per day. A substantial spike in posting volume occurred when Israel and Hezbollah came to battle in July. Sifry expects to see a similar spike in his next quarterly report, which will take this week's Election Day-associated blog activity into account.

Bloggers who want to become more like those in Technorati's "very high authority" group, those with 500 or more blogs linking in the last six months, should note a couple of characteristics Sifry has observed: "Bloggers of this type have been at it longer - a year and a half on average - and post nearly twice a day, an increase in posting volume of over 100% from the previous group."

Time and effort, the bane of anyone who wants an express route to success, are factors to consider in those most authoritative blogs. We will go farther and say quality of posts separates the very high authority from those ranked lower in Technorati's index.

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Tag: Blogosphere

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As the number of Internet users has increased throughout the world, Americans now comprise a smaller percentage of them. That growth has led to a shift in the numbers of international versus domestic visitors to US sites.

Communication has done more to bring the world closer together than any other aspect of society. That was aptly demonstrated by the figures cited by measurement firm comScore. In its report on the share of traffic from outside the United States to US sites, comScore found that 14 of the top 25 US websites received more traffic from international visitors.

That includes the top five destinations: Yahoo, Time Warner, Microsoft, Google, and eBay. "The fact that more than three-quarters of the traffic to Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft is now coming from outside of the U.S. is indicative of what a truly global medium the Internet has become," said Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe.

Ivins also noted that the US share of the world's online population has fallen from 65 percent ten years ago to 25 percent now.

Even though a sizable number of international users have become the bulk of traffic to these sites, their engagement with online properties differs from US users. ComScore noted this by showing how the greater share of foreign visitors generally did not translate to a higher share of page views by them.

Google and Lycos proved to be exceptions to this. Google 79.8 percent of total traffic accounted for a higher share of page views, 89.1 percent. International users perform a higher number of searches, accounting for that figure.

Buyers of online advertising should consider whether they can serve an international market with their goods or services. If so, tweaking ad campaigns with the likes of Google or Yahoo to draw those visitors to one's website, and ensuring those visitors can be served, could open up a greater world of profitability.

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Tag: International Visitors

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