Early reports of the sudden and tragic death of 44-year-old Steve Irwin sent millions of people online to find out if the rumors were true.

Those rumors quickly proved correct. The well-known dangerous-animal conservationist had died in Australian waters after sustaining a fatal wound from a stingray's tail. The disbelief that a generally benign creature like the stingray could bring down a man who had been catching crocodiles from age 9 led many to hit news sites in hordes.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported how it and its sister site at theage.com.au both began to experience significant slowdowns. That report cited web measurement firm Hitwise in noting that Australian Internet traffic to print news and media websites hit a peak not seen since a mid-May miner rescue incident.

A number of sites felt the stress as Irwin's fans searched for more information:

Other key news sites also showed signs of strain and some, including CNN, had to switch to a "lite" mode, ditching bandwidth-hungry elements on the home page in order to cope with the surge in usage.
In Australia, the ABC news site temporarily crashed under the weight of clicks and came back shortly after with a home page that only displayed the one story that everyone wanted to read.
Google News currently lists over 2,400 stories about Irwin, and that topic has stayed atop Google News for over a day. Blog search sites like Sphere and Technorati both list Steve Irwin as a top search for posts throughout the blogosphere.

Fans have also begun to make their tributes known online as well. The report noted how fan-created films showed up on video-sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video. The Discovery Channel has posted a video news clip and other information about Irwin, and also announced it would rename garden space in front of the network's headquarters to the "Steve Irwin Memorial Sensory Garden."

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Tag: Crocodile Hunter

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Microsoft's Garry Wiseman claimed yesterday that Sina, a Chinese classifieds site, "had not only lifted our previous user interface's look and feel, but also directly copied some of our graphics." Wiseman wasn't pleased, but he didn't say anything too nasty. Still, some moderately aggressive comments accumulated, and now Wiseman has updated the post.

"Wow.. lots of reactions to this post and I'm actually surprised at how much this has blown up," he wrote. "The post above was merely an indication of surprise whereas people seem to think we're feeling mortally wounded by it. We've moved on to a new UI (although we still use the pushpin icon for various things) so we were more bemused by what Sina was doing."

This came in response to comments along the lines of "didn't Microsoft do the same thing with Mac interface particularly the trashcan. I believe the MS answer was to consider it flattering to be copied." The person who wrote that chose not to leave their name behind, in case you were wondering.

Wiseman explained that his post "was mainly intended to raise the issue of cross-border copyright infrigments [sic] and signal that it's not acceptable. I wasn't expecting much sympathy (the usual MS bashing / irony comments were expected), but at least some more discussion about ensuring that people signal that it's not OK for people to lift graphics from your site because next time you may find it's your product that has been ‘leveraged' for design in a different country."

Tag: Microsoft, Sina

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YouTube is getting into Facebook's arena, adding a video-networking angle for college students. Part of the Groups section of the site, students can share videos from last night's ballgame, or last weekend's kegger.

T-minus four days until a Senator's daughter gets her trust fund raided and her car taken away.

So far, there are about 31 colleges and universities represented, with about 30 more to come.

But the Girls-Gone-Wild crowd shouldn't get too excited just yet. You have to be a student or faculty member of the college, with a valid .edu email address before you can view the content.

This could only turn out badly, says DownloadSquad's Jordan Running:

In all likelihood we're on the verge of a flurry of editorials describing employers who have turned down promising young graduates, students getting disciplinary action, and parents getting all in a huff over things seen on YouTube.

The feature allows students to start or join groups within their YouTube college, and connect with others who have the same interests.

YouTube

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A small campaign aimed at bringing iced coffee drinkers to Starbucks in the afternoons and evenings backfired when their coupons quickly multiplied online.

Iced drinks were a problem for Starbucks, particularly in the hot Southeast region of the US. Amazingly enough, people headed to work in the morning on 90+ degree days wanted no part of steaming hot espressos or similar drinks, opting for the cooler choices instead.

Those drinks take longer for the typical Starbucks barista to conjure up, and that led to long lines at stores as well as a drop in sales in July, according to an AP report.

Starbucks did just fine on the financial side anyway, with their most recent quarterly profits rising by 16 percent. Perhaps the giddiness of the profit increase along with meeting analyst expectations led the company to try to shift some of that interest in Frappuccinos to later periods in the day.

The company sent out an undisclosed number of coupons to a few employees in the Southeast. Canada.com reported these coupons for free icy drinks quickly spread well beyond the handful of friends and family Starbucks anticipated. Copies of the coupons began showing up across North America in massive numbers.

Their report cited a comment from a customer service representative at Starbucks, who declined to be identified: "It snowballed and got out of hand. Starbucks had to put a stop to it."

That meant stores had to post signs telling customers the coupons, listing an expiration date of September 30th, would not be honored at any Starbucks. Frappucinos and other iced drinks sell for $3 to $4 each normally, and a month of free drinks could have had some eventual impact.

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Tag: Starbucks

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TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington received what he called a "nastygram" from Apple's legal team after he posting a video demonstration of the company's new operating system Mac OS X 10.5. Arrington, a former lawyer, says they're barking up the wrong tube.

On his other blog, CrunchNotes, Arrington ignored the austere big-lettered warning "NOT FOR POSTING" and published the email from O'Melveny & Myers' Ian Ramage.

In the email, Ramage complained that the software demonstrated in the video had not been released to the public and must have been released by a developer's violation of his confidentiality agreement.

The email concludes, in that wholly unpleasant litigious manner, with Apple's demands:

Apple therefore requests that you remove this video from your website and take steps to prevent any further distribution of videos or screenshots of Apple software without Apple's authorization. If you are represented by counsel, please provide me with the identity of that counsel.
It's that last line that makes you flinch. But Arrington, unmoved, responded that not only did the video in question come from YouTube, in which case the attorney should contact them, but also that the supposed secret operating system was video previewed on Apple's site as well.

Details, details.

Though the Arrington crowd largely takes his side. A few are not so sure he can't be held liable anyway, even if the video in question came from YouTube.

Apple

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A Washington, D.C-based corporate psychologist and jog bra seller filed suit against Google last week for $250,000 claiming the company wrongfully removed AdSense from her website.

Well, her attorney put it a bit more harshly. According to eWeek, Dr. Theresa Bradley's suit accuses Google of fraud, misrepresentation, and "willful, wanton, fraudulent and malicious" conduct.

What did Google do to chap her craw so bad? After spending 100 hours placing and reviewing AdSense ads, she asked Google to block ads from the competition, which is permitted in the user agreement.

Google blocked all of them, discovering that she had violated the to terms of service by clicking on her own ads. And that, dear ones, is click fraud.

Bradley says clicking them was necessary to assess whether or not the ads were for competing services, apparently ignorant of or apathetic toward the AdSense Preview Tool.

The online forums have been, to understate it, unsympathetic and unforgiving of Bradley, calling the lawsuit "frivolous." Some have even discussed whether or not she should lose her doctorate.

AdSense, Click Fraud

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Microsoft opened up its Windows Live OneCare Family Safety beta this week. Parents can sign up to test the service designed give them more control over what their children see and do on the Internet.

The Redmond, Washington-based software company laments how the opportunities for education the Internet offers are often tarnished with questionable content. The Live OneCare Family Safety public beta is available in the U.S. to try out through ideas.live.com.

Features of the service include:

· Content filtering. Web filtering that lets users to set allow, block or warn settings for a range of content categories, and settings that can be applied for each member of the household. Parents can review and adjust family settings that are automatically applied to computers with the Family Safety software installed.

· Expert Guidance. Advice from child organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics on age appropriate settings. Users have access to guidelines on how to help a child use online communications safely or how parents should talk to children about inappropriate Web browsing.

· Activity reports. Parents can access activity reports for each user in the family, anytime from any Internet-connected PC, to stay informed about how their children are browsing the Web.

· Contact management. In future versions, parents will be able to create "allow" lists for other Windows Live services their children might use to communicate with others, like instant messaging, so that they can communicate only with approved contacts.

Live OneCare

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The Net Neutrality movement is gaining support among U.S. senators. At the close of the August recess, the SaveTheInternet.com coalition added four previously uncommitted legislators to the cause.

According to the website, that brings the tally to 14 senators in favor of the Snowe-Dorgan amendment to Senator Ted Stevens' sweeping telecom bill. There is ground left to make up, though, with Senate opposition still nearly doubling the supporters, and half the Senate still uncertain.

The split is almost entirely according to party lines. All 26 of the senators who've made a stance against Net Neutrality are Republican. Of the 14 senators in favor, 12 are Democrat. Fifty-six are still uncommitted, and four straddle the fence.

The SaveTheInternet.com coalition reports that activists "took to the pavement" in 25 cities nationwide this week to deliver petitions to Senate members in their hometowns during recess. The outcry was enough to convince Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), James Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to pledge their support.

"We are extremely pleased that both of our New York Senators are pro Net Neutrality," said Jessica Findley, a freelance graphic designer from Brooklyn, who helped organize the New York City rally. In New York, 50,000 petitions were delivered to Schumer.

It is unknown if Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was persuaded by the crowd outside her Detroit office, where David Pettit of the Public Interest Research Group made his appeal.

"Powerful telephone company lobbyists will tell you one of two things - both of which, of course, are false. First, they will tell you that the Stevens bill already preserves Net Neutrality. This is completely not true. Second, they might say ‘don't regulate the Internet. Let the market decide.' ... All we want to do is reinstate the Net Neutrality principles that guarantee that the Internet treats everyone fairly."

This week, petition delivery events were held at senators' offices in Baltimore; Boston; Charleston, W.Va.; Columbus, Ohio; Eau Claire, Wis.; Fayetteville, Ark Honolulu; Louisville, Ky.; Madison, Wis.; Milwaukee; Montpelier, Vt.; Orlando; Newark, N.J.; Portland, Maine; Providence, R.I.; Seattle; Spokane, Wash.; and Wilmington, Del.

Net Neutrality

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The site will do photo and video search with a focus on celebrity gossip and news, as Pixsy demonstrates what its technology can do.

StarHabit launched from Pixsy this morning. The company touted the new site as enabling StarHabit users to search for the latest, freshest celebrity content online.

A statement from Pixsy described what StarHabit can do:

In addition to searching and browsing the latest celebrity material on the web, StarHabit.com enables users to save their favorite photo and video content in a "MyStars" page. StarHabit.com remembers preferences so users can revisit and view all of their favorite material in one location.
MyStars lets users save their favorite celebrity photos, videos, content providers, categories, and searches. Clicking a photo or video thumbnail image sends users to the original source of that material.
The new site will pull content and aggregate it from a variety of sources, like GalleryOfTheAbsurd.com, TMZ.com, PinkIsTheNewBlog.com, E!Online, PerezHilton, StarPulse, HollywoodTuna, Defamer, TheSuperficial, GoFugYourself, Anorak, Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood.com, and many more.

Pixsy CEO Chase Norlin told Reuters, "If you look at all these popular celebrity blogs, you can tell that people are addicted to this stuff. If a Mel Gibson thing would have happened while StarHabit was operational, we would have had that news within minutes."

With StarHabit serving to demonstrate the power of Pixsy's media search platform, Norlin also noted how his product could benefit a site publisher that licenses it. "It creates new ad inventory instead of cannibalizing what's already out there," Norlin said. "Anyone can become a mini-YouTube with Pixsy."

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Tags: StarHabit, Pixsy

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The nifty Ajax-powered interface and options have vanished from Live.com, replaced with the simple look and feel of the older MSN Search page.

A visit to search.live.com only returns a "Service unavailable message," and the link to Search Only from Live.com delivers a very pedestrian-looking search form. Search results look about the same as those on MSN Search.

On the MSN Search blog, Ken Moss, General Manager Web Search, posted earlier in the week that a lot has been going on behind the scenes at Live Search:

Since introducing a beta in March on Windows Live we have been experimenting with all sorts of things and now have begun testing things at a larger scale from MSN.
Please check out the features, and keep an eye on both our MSN service, and our Windows Live service. It's a fair bet that you'll see more changes coming soon ;-)
Moss listed some of the features the team has made available since launching Live Search. They expanded into image and video search, revising the macro search feature, and updating the user interface.

The interface has proven the most interesting part of Live Search. Using Microsoft's version of Ajax programming, which they call Atlas, Live Search provided all of its search results in a single window. The scrollbar allowed the user to scroll through the complete list of search results without having to navigate from page to page.

That and other features like expanding or limiting the information displayed with each search result have been taken offline. With the Labor Day holiday weekend beginning in the US, the Live Search team has chosen an odd time to take down the service.

It isn't the usual time one would expect to see new features debut, as most system administrators would rather give up caffeine than launch something brand new the Friday before a long weekend (or any Friday, really.) Unless Live Search experienced a massive failure or security problem, we expect to see something new when it relaunches.

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Tag: Windows Live Search

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