Should your company upgrade to grande? The monetary value of larger flat screen monitors is well worth the return in employee productivity, as proven in a recent study conducted by Apple Computers.

The phrase "one size fits all" has become all but obsolete in today's society. Consumers today face a barrage of choices in size in everything from coffee to car rims, and the same holds true for business techonology. Apple Computers has made the choice of a flat screen monitor size a little easier by conducting a study to measure productivity gains using the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. The larger surface area of the monitor makes for a more efficient use of space and time.

The study proved that not only does the larger, higher resolution monitor increase productivity, it more than doubles it. Several aspects of office applications such as word processors were studied, as well as professional publishing applications. The most conclusive results came from a study which tested productivity in relation to the actual size of the monitor. The time that it took employees to combine data from Excel spreadsheets was studied using a 17 inch and 30 inch monitor. An article which reported Apple's findings states that "cutting and pasting cells from Excel spreadsheets resulted in a 51.31% productivity gain -- a task that took 20.7 seconds on the larger monitor versus 42.6 seconds on the smaller screen." That is an astounding 105% increase in employee productivity per hour.

Pfeiffer Consulting, which was comissioned to conduct the study for Apple, attributes the increase in productivity to the larger surface area of the monitor. The larger surface enables its user to view the entirety of their work without the hassle of enlarging or relocating it. Whereas with a smaller surface, the user must maximize and minimize with the each new window or adding of information. The larger monitor was also helpful to employees in data basing inormation using spread sheets.

The larger LCD monitor also surpasses the smaller monitor in quality, energy efficiency, as well as health. The LCD monitor is proven to last longer than CRT montitors and requires less maintainance, as well as being more enegery efficient. One can never be too careful when it comes to their health and in that aspect the LCD causes less fatigue to the eyes heavier computer users. The viewer's eyes are also less fatigued when looking at the screen because of the absence of scan lines and constant light.

The bottom line is this: the 30 inch flat screen LCD monitor might cost more than a smaller monitor, but the increase in productivity and the longevity of the monitor are well worth the cost for businesses.

Zango Inc., the Web 2.0 incarnation of bubble-era adware and porno-popup company 180solutions, settled up with the Federal Trade Commission to the tune of $3 million (about 23 cents per install). The FTC charged that Zango used unfair and deceptive methods to download adware to users computers and then block them from removing it.

Zango's most recent previous news appearance occurred in July, when angry users noted that a Warner Brothers children's site displayed a Zango icon inviting kids to download games. The games came with adware that potentially would show adult content, depending on user surfing habits.

Blogger Chet Faliszek broke that story, which led to Warner Brothers severing ties with Zango. Faliszek urged readers to file complaints with the FTC, which, apparently, happened.

The FTC subsequently accused Zango of using third parties to install adware via programs like Zango Search Assistant, 180Search Assistant, Seekmo, and n-Case, that monitored consumers' Internet use in order to serve up targeted popup advertising. The FTC says that adware was installed over 70 million times, displaying over 6.9 billion ads.

Zango distributors often offered free software, such as screensavers, p2p software, games, and utilities without disclosure that adware came with the software. Distributors also conducted "drive-by" downloads, exploiting vulnerabilities in Web browsers to install behavior-monitoring adware without the users knowledge.

If that weren't enough (and at this point it seems $3 million is a little light), the FTC said Zango deliberately made it difficult to identify, locate, and remove the adware once it was installed.

The company did not label popups ads to show where they came from, gave files names resembling core systems software, provided uninstall tools that would not uninstall the adware, gave those bogus uninstall tools confusing labels, and installed code on consumers' computers that secretly reinstalled the software if the user tried to remove it.

"Consumers' computers belong to them, and they shouldn't have to accept any content they don't want," said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "If consumers choose to receive pop-up ads, so be it. But it violates federal law to secretly install software that forces consumers to get pop-ups that disrupt their computer use."

Zango executives shifted the blame to the company's affiliates, who it seems won't be participating in the check-writing.

"Early in our business, and as we've acknowledged, we relied too heavily on our affiliates to enforce our consumer notice and consent policies. Unfortunately, this allowed deceptive third parties to exploit our system to the detriment of consumers, our advertisers and our publishing partners. We deeply regret and apologize for the resulting negative impact," said Keith Smith, CEO of Zango.

Zango stated that the current stipulations mandated by the FTC have been in practice since January 1, 2006. Security research Ben Edelman begs to differ, according to Wired.com, and VitalSecurity.org has screenshots and explanations of blue-screen madness inflicted by Zango.

Tag: Zango

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Yahoo's method of bringing consumers to its merchants calls upon the age-old concept of coupons merged with the newest bits of its search technology to provide shoppers with deals.

No, coupon clipping isn't the tactic Yahoo will use to cut its spending and save enough at Piggly Wiggly so it can buy Facebook. Instead, the ability to find coupons by product or merchant has been added to make Yahoo Shopping a more desirable destination.

Accomplishing this involved the use of Yahoo Shortcuts. Those allow users of Yahoo Search to quickly get to particular content. With a holiday shopping season forecast to deliver $24.3 billion in spending, everyone wants to grab as many customers as they can, and every little incentive can help.

Through Yahoo Search, a visitor can query for something like shoe coupons and find links to discount codes when available listed below the sponsored results box. One can also search by retailer, like Best Buy coupons, to find promotions from them.

The Search team also created shortcuts for product reviews (Nikon D70S reviews) and items on sale (computers on sale). Just type the name or type of product followed by either coupons, reviews, or "on sale" to find out more.

The changes come as Yahoo completely revamps their Shopping site for the holiday season. Jon Ann Steinmetz posted about this at the Yahoo Shopping blog. The Bargains Center looks like it will be a popular stop for shoppers.

I found the Bargains Center a little more useful for finding coupons than the Shortcut. Yahoo has organized this to allow visitors to browse coupons and deals by store or by category.

Yahoo Shoppinig also has features like Holiday Gift Guides based on who is receiving a gift, and various category Buying Guides populated with content from professional reviewers, according to Steinmetz. Posts about noteworthy products will appear on the Yahoo Shopping blog through the season too.

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Samba and Creative Commons, both with ties in the open source community, benefited from Google's largesse, an early present to a pair of organizations for the holidays.

The two top search companies made some moves that were very much in the spirit of the holiday season. First, Google played Father Christmas to a pair of organizations with pledges of annual financial support for their efforts.

Developers behind the Samba project will enjoy Google's favor to the tune of $20,000. Samba software provides file and print services across operating system platforms, allowing for example Windows clients to connect to a Linux system for those services.

"This is fantastic news for the Samba project" said team member Andrew Tridgell, "and will allow us to provide more support for developers who could not otherwise afford the travel expenses to attend conferences."

Creative Commons received a donation from Google, in the amount of $30,000 just in time for the group's fundraising drive. The organization develops licenses for content that creators can use to reserve some rights to their work while permitting others to use and share that content without the threat of a lawsuit.

Ryan Carter at Download Squad wrote how the donation is "a vote of confidence for the work of the chartiable CC."

"This doesn't surprise me too much, since Google has been at least sympathetic to the open-source camp," Carter said. "I don't for a minute simply dismiss the idea that Google most likely has ulterior motives, because they could, but sometimes companies do nice things for others."

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Tags: Google, Samba, Creative Commons

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If anyone was wondering why Google made an all-stock deal with YouTube to acquire it, news of negotiations with media companies that could require big cash payments should answer that question.

Despite Google's demonstrated willingness to go into court and battle the foes that would vex its march toward organizing all the world's information, the potential for battling multiple media companies that can match the search advertising company in spending on attorneys has Google ready to preempt those battles with big bags of cash.

The report from Financial Times cited insider sources who claim Google CEO Eric Schmidt and other executives have been making the rounds of big media. The talks with Viacom, News Corp, and others could lead to Google paying out tens of millions of dollars for the right to have copyrighted video material appear on YouTube.

Fortunately for Google, the company has big bags of cash. While they probably don't keep it in garbage bags in the garage like Jo DiMaggio reportedly used to do, their financial statements cite around $10 billion in cash and similar assets.

Take it as given that the media companies read Google's financial statements too. Financial Times said Google has offered one unnamed company $100 million for a two year license for using its content.

If Google had to pay a billion dollars to get the Time Warners and NBC Universals out of Google's inbox, and kept them at bay for two years, that should be a good deal for the company. With 2006 revenue anticipated in the $10 billion range, and a potential windfall in 2008 when conditions of the Google-AOL deal should require a nice payday from Time Warner, the stars seem aligned for Google to get these media companies paid off and take care of business for the next 24 months.

Pete Cashmore posted similar thoughts at his Mashable blog:

In the end, it's just the same old story, and it'll probably continue for at least 6 months while the mess gets sorted out. YouTube will get sued a few more times, the big media companies will get massive checks in the mail and the video-sharing site will come out on the other side, largely unscathed by the whole ordeal.
Edelman VP and blogger Steve Rubel observed that Google Video and its highly touted partnership with the NBA has come to an end, just as the season began:

All games, which had been previously available for a fee, have been pulled down from Google.
My gut is that Google is having a lot of difficulty selling content on Google Video. If the NBA were making money with Google, you can bet they would have stayed there. In fact, they probably would have used it as a platform to promote their new League Pass Broadband service - but they didn't.
NBA commissioner David Stern has overseen a resurgence in his league, with lots of amazing hoop talents like LeBron James drawing plenty of fan interest. Stern doesn't make bad business decisions, so this should be seen as a big thumbs-down for Google Video.

The Financial Times referred to Google's talks with media companies as a "frantic round of negotiations." If Google was looking at the collapse of its search advertising business unless negotiations could avert that, then yes, talks probably would be frantic.

But Google can afford the price. They know it, the media bigwigs know it. We just have to wait for them to hammer out a number while someone at Google writes the checks. Wouldn't it be cool if they brought back Larry Page's Lego printer to print them out?

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Yahoo China is preparing to file an aggressive new lawsuit against Qihoo, a rival portal. The case will reportedly target Qihoo's founder (and former president of Yahoo China), Zhou Hongyi, by claiming "that Zhou has embezzled from Yahoo China and defrauded it."

An earlier lawsuit against Qihoo is still active; at issue is a Qihoo anti-spyware program, called 360 Safe, "that prompts users to de-install Yahoo China's toolbar," according to Fortune's Elen Wu.

That dispute became fairly ugly, with references to "personal vendettas" and "evil" tossed about by both sides. This new lawsuit isn't likely to mend relations between the two companies. Matt Marshall, who broke the story, reported on the details.

"Yahoo China will claim Zhou was already using his position . . . to steal partnership and investment opportunities away from Yahoo China, preparing the groundwork for his exodus to Qihoo," Marshall wrote.

"He also offered money to key Yahoo China staff if they left the company, the suit will allege. He even launched press releases through front PR firms, saying in one case that a Yahoo China deal with MSN had expired when in fact it hadn't, the suit will claim."

And as if all that wasn't enough, Marshall's VentureBeat article also noted that "a separate source says Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang is actively seeking to dissuade investors from backing Qihoo."

Yahoo China is owned by Alibaba, a Chinese company. The fate of the lawsuit will still reflect on its American counterpart, though. China has proven to be a "challenging" market for Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

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Three years after Google launched its AdSense service, the company finally owns the AdSense.com domain. Previously, the domain was owned by AdSense Consulting, who bought the domain in 1996.

And they're still kind of bitter about it. Go to AdSense2.com and you'll find a sharp-tongued message:

If you think you can get rich quick placing other people's ads on your site or blog, please contact Google who has taken and used our business name without permission or compensation.
At least they're clear about their feelings on the matter.

Google didn't own AdSense.com until as late as July 2006. In July, Wired reported that AdSense Consulting had sold the domain through a private broker, the buyer taking control of the domain in September '05. But as of the date of that article Google still didn't own it.

A forum poster at Domain State noted that Google finally acquired the AdSense.com domain within the past week. It is unclear if Google bought the domain in 2005, or if Google bought it last week from the aforementioned broker.

The Whois Registry shows the record was last updated on October 31st, perhaps an indicator of when Google officially registered it. AdSense.com now redirects to the Google homepage.

Tag: Google, AdSense

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Yahoo Shopping has a new look, and as the company admits, it's "just in time for the holidays." The redesign's timeliness doesn't necessarily mean it's exploitative, though, and Yahoo boasts that the site offers "a delightful and convenient shopping experience."

The company is likely, in addition to preparing for the Christmas shopping season, readying itself for the release of Google Base. As our David Utter reported, the Froogle replacement may be just around the corner. The Yahoo Shopping Blog made no mention of its upcoming competitor, though, in a post announcing the "redecorations."

Jon Ann Steinmetz, who wrote the entry, said only that the new look is intended to "clean things up a bit and make it easier for consumers to quickly find and compare products." One upgrade in particular, though, was singled out by her and several other sources: Yahoo seems quite proud of its Bargains Center, "where we round up sales, coupons, free shipping offers, rebates and more from across the Internet."

Antone Gonsalves mentioned it in his article for TechWeb. Chris Saito, the senior director of Yahoo Shopping, brought it up, as well. "Our new Bargains Center, Yahoo! Answers integration, and improved shopping search make it easier than ever for consumers to find the best product at the right price," he said in a statement.

In more general terms, Gonsalves spoke of what people "wanted from Yahoo! Shopping," which "boiled down to three things: a great deal; learn from other people's experiences before they buy, and find products quickly and easily." He did not mention what the Yahoo Shopping team probably wants - a delayed launch of Google Base.

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Two consumer advocacy groups have filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the regulatory agency to investigate alleged abuses resulting Microsoft's adCenter services and the private user data the company collects.

The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), filed the complaint with the FTC earlier this week urging a full investigation of online advertising practices in general, but targeted Microsoft because, in the groups' estimation, the company's tracking system is the most advanced.

The groups found Microsoft's Hotmail service "especially disturbing" as the email service is used to bolster adCenter targeting by collecting information on 30 million monthly visitors.

In the filing, the groups complain that the FTC is behind the curve in dealing with data collection and interactive marketing systems used by Internet companies like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! to track, profile, and target users as they surf the Internet.

"Unfortunately, over the last several years the FTC has largely ignored the critical developments of the electronic marketplace that have placed the privacy of every American at risk," said Jeff Chester, CDD executive director.

"The FTC should long ago have sounded a very public alarm--and called for action--concerning the data collection practices stemming from such fields as Web analytics, online advertising networks, behavioral targeting, and rich 'virtual reality' media, all of which threaten the privacy of the U.S. public."

Among the concern is that current privacy disclosure policies are inadequate to inform users about what data are collected and how that data is used. The CDD and US PIRG strongly doubt that the information, as is claimed, is really non-personally identifying. This was illustrated by the recent AOL search data leak that led several news organizations to pieced together enough information to identify specific AOL users.

Last year, the Department of Justice subpoenaed all the major search engines, including MSN, AOL, Yahoo! and Google, asking them to release reams of search data collected as part of an effort to bolster legislation against child pornography. Google, the lone holdout among the search engines, was eventually ordered by a judge to turn over some information.

In spite of recent events, and a steady echo of privacy concerns in the blogosphere, the CDD and US PIRG say the FTC hasn't been paying attention to what's been going on in cyberspace.

"The emergence of this on-line tracking and profiling system has snuck up on both consumers and policymakers and is much more than a privacy issue," said U.S. PIRG Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski.

"Its effect has been to put enormous amounts of consumer information into the hands of sellers, leaving buyer-consumers at risk of unfair pricing schemes and with fewer choices than the Internet is touted to provide."

There are four specific requests made of the FTC:

"Microsoft, like Google and Yahoo, is actively rewriting the rules that govern the online marketplace," said Chester. "It is the FTC's job to make certain that these rules reflect more than corporate self-interest. The public interest matters, too, and it is the FTC's responsibility to protect and promote that vital perspective, by issuing injunctions against the most egregious of the new invasive advertising practices, which are fully described in our complaint."

Microsoft didn't address the charges specifically, but reiterated its commitment to consumer privacy.

"Consumer trust is essential to the success of online business and helping protect consumers' privacy is a top priority for Microsoft in our development and implementation of online services," Microsoft Senior Attorney Mike Hintze told WebProNews.

"We are very open about our privacy policies and practices across all of our online services and advertising products because we believe that providing consumers with this type of transparency and control is extremely important, and it will continue to be a central focus of how we design and deliver online services both now and in the future."

Tag: Microsoft, CDD, US PIRG

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Yahoo has launched a new site dedicated solely to food. They have partnered with several online well-established sites to offer recipes, tips and everything else related to food.

Some of the major sites they have partnered with are Allrecipes.com, Food & Wine and Reader's Digest. No website about food would be complete without the ever popular celebrity chefs.

You will not find Anthony Bourdain on here, but what they do have is Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray and Wolf Gang Puck to name a few.

Yahoo Food will also feature respected bloggers. Donatella Arpaia, "Donatella's Dish"; Serious Eats' Ed Levine, "Ed Levine Eats"; and Frank Stitt, "Southern Table, along with a number of others.

The site will also contain video content and plans are in the works to develop an online video show called "Cheap and Easy" featuring future celebrity chef Brooke Peterson.

The site itself is relatively easy to navigate. One disappointment was when I typed in a search for a recipe for Kentucky Hot Brown. It led me to a web search. The question is why would I go to this site when it directs me to the web for a recipe they should all ready have?

Granted the site is pretty and all. They do rank recipes and local dining spots with reviews, which can be helpful. The problem with that is there exist plenty of other food sites that do similar things. In fact they may even do them better.

Why Yahoo has decided to unveil this site now is rather odd? Maybe they are hoping with the holidays around the corner people will be checking in with Martha Stewart to find out exactly how to cook the perfect turkey or any other dish.

With cooking and celebrity chefs being widely popular there is little doubt Yahoo Food will get noticed. Just how much fat is in the frying pan will be the real question.

Tag: Yahoo Food

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