It is official: two of the World Wide Web’s largest search entities Yahoo! and Google are set to rock the world with its future partnership. They will cooperate after agreeing on a search advertising deal. So shaken were the public and other investors that Yahoo Inc.’s shares plummeted down 3 percent in June 2008 shortly after the merger is announced. As if that is not enough, it further dropped 16 percent after Yahoo Inc. refused to foster ties with another Internet giant, Microsoft. Investors are concerned that Yahoo! will eventually lose out to Google but its president assures them that they will profit via less common search terms.

As expected, Yahoo stock fell by more than 20% in opening trade.  While Yahoo rejoiced yesterday as Microsoft withdrew the offer, they will now have to get ready for the next battle.  Many analyst believe that Yahoo will now face plenty of lawsuits from Yahoo stock holders for failing to strike a deal with Microsoft.  Seems Jerry Yang has a pretty rough week ahead of him.

Lenovo has come with up a great ad against Macbook Air. The advertisment contains the same Manilla envelope that Steve Jobs showed to showcase Macbook Air. It ridicules the “incompletness” ( no optical drive ) of Macbook Air in the ad and displays its own product Lenovo X300 in the ad. It’s very funny. People can just search on youtube for “Lenovo X300 Macbook Air” and they will find the online video I am talking about.

Most of the technology blogs are discussing the same thing “Microsoft-Yahoo” merger and how Microsoft withdrew its bid for acquiring Yahoo yesterday. While Yahoo wanted 37$ per share, Microsoft was willing to give max 34$ per share. Personally, I would have loved if both Microsoft and Yahoo merge and give some kind of competition to Google in online advertising. I do love Google Adwords and spend a lot every month for PPC programs, but more competition in the same field would prove beneficial to all. Don’t you think?

I try to ask this question - “Do you use Facebook for Fun or Networking?” often to people with whom I interact. Most of them replied “For Fun”.

While many posts have been written all over the blogosphere emphasizing how one can use Facebook to increase their reach towards potential customers, clients and increase their profits, revenue.. the truth still remains the same. Facebook is very much a “fun” product.

In fact Flowingdata.com has neatly shown detailed breakup of all the popular applications of facebook. The applications which are fun-based are immensely popular.

The information on Internet is increasing at a very fast pace. Hence, sometimes we look for some software that can help us to organize and manage all the content that we want. Feedburner provides this help. Google Reader and Bloglines are the most commonly used feed burners. Instead of checking your favorite websites everyday for updates, you can use Google Reader or Bloglines to do it for you. Information that matters most to you such as news feeds, blogs, or music are tracked by the feed burners and organized for you in your own personal web news page.

The user interface of both Google Reader and Bloglines includes folders for feeds that track read and unread items on the left side and when you click on the folder, all the information is displayed on the right side. If we compare both, I believe Google reader is much more polished and easier on eyes than Bloglines. Google reader has curves, soft colors and there is transparency for nice reading environment whereas Bloglines is just plain ugly.

When it comes to usability, I believe Google is much better because once the feed reaches 200 unread items, Bloglines don’t add new ones to feed listing. You have to look at all the feeds only then you will be able to check your newest feed. Whereas it is not so in the case of Google Reader, it keeps adding new items at the top and its unread count is 100+. If we speak about speed, in Bloglines if a feed has tons of posts that you haven’t looked at in awhile then it can be a serious drag to load. Whereas Google Reader displays only 20 items at a time and this never slow down your reading session.
At the end, overall we can say that Google Reader takes the lead in organizing and providing your information.

When anyone gets into blogging stuff, the first thing that comes in their mind is which CMS to use? It is the most crucial decision made by every blogger. There are many CMS available and all of them have pros and cons. But today I would be talking about the most happening CMS in the blogging world i.e. Wordpress and Movable type.

Wordpress is always known for its 5 minute installation. You just need an SQL database set up and then download the wordpress zip which is less than 1 MB. Then unzip the wordpress zip and upload it in your server. Now run the install.php file. If we compare it with Movable type, the file size of Movable type is 4 MB which is four times the wordpress file. Even its uploading takes little more time than wordpress.

Once you install wordpress, the initial window is known as the Dashboard where you can find many useful features such as comments, blog stats, last 6 posts or spam count etc. There are many tabs displayed on the top like write, manage, Blogroll, plug-in, options etc. It’s very easy to use while if we move on to Movable type, you will find same dashboard where 5 main groups are there such as Create, Edit, Organize, Design and Config expanded by a drop down menu.

Wordpress has always been on the top for offering free version, active development, affordability and better documentation whereas movable type was not an open source in the past now they provide their personal edition for free. They have paid packages with commercial support that are mainly used by organizations that don’t spend time for technical expertise is something goes wrong.

Therefore, we can say that movable type is a well organized CMS for business people who are willing to pay and wordpress with its great features is used by general users. You should try both and then make a decision which one suits you better.

Facebook has become so popular and commonly used among all types of social groups especially college students. Facebook users are so addicted to it that they spend hours and hours in exploring and using it, like watching Television, listening to radio and surfing the internet. Facebook means basically Social Networking Website.

If you are not aware, let me tell you that you can make some serious money creating Facebook applications. These applications are basically software that can be easily added to any Facebook profile. You need to learn coding to create such applications that can work with Facebook. Once you add these applications, they are simple, fun and easy to use. One of the very popular applications is ‘Compare’. This compare application will randomly select two of your friends and ask them a question such as “Who’s the better kisser?” and then the fun game starts. The best thing is that these applications involve everyone.

You can also sell your product on Facebook, if you have really one-especially if your product or service caters to the 18 to 35 year old group. A lot of people also browse Facebook looking for interesting content like causes to support, photos and funny stuff that are worth looking.

Facebook is a complete Social Networking Website which was launched in the year 2004 and it was founded by Mark Zukerberg, a former Harvard student. However, just like there are two sides of the same coin, there are also disadvantages of Facebook. Firstly, it has lost its exclusivity by overcrowding people from every race and culture. Its biggest drawback is related to privacy issues where the complete user information is published online at the click of a button.

At the end, we can appreciate the popularity which a Facebook has attained in a short span of time including features like connecting, sharing, exchanging etc.

There are many web analytics services available on web such as Opentracker.net, shinystat.com, Google analytics or extreme tracking. These services provide information about visitors, what pages visitors are viewing on your website, what links on your site are getting the most traffic or how long visitors stay on your website. Google analytics and Extreme Tracking are most famous and usable services for tracking visitors.

Extreme tracking has the best user lookup tools and if you are willing to look at visitors and their patterns, then Extreme does it very well. The rest of the applications are very strong but they are not strongest if we compare with other services whereas Google Analytics is very powerful and is generally the best comparison from site to site.

The free account at Extreme tracking is limited and requires you to place a graphic on your website. The Premium account is $4.5 per month. The interface layout of the website can be improved. But with Google analytics, you have the Google’s trust level and it’s easy to use. Overall the most popular analytics is Google. It is free and it offers functionality which can be compared with most expensive visitor tracking solutions. By offering a free and useful website analytics solution, Google has made a very sneaky and awesome calculated move in the cold war for search engine supremacy.

If you are like others who are addicted to receive automated responses from social networking websites where someone or the other is trying to add people to their group of friends, then you must be aware of the importance of such websites. Sometimes people just ignore such things, but once they know that a really good friend has initiated the automated email then they start thinking about it a bit and like the addiction starts.

MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter have incredibly grown in popularity due to the process of simple networking and sharing with friends and colleagues. Everyday people spend hours to constantly check their status updates, comments, and added friends.

Facebook and MySpace are two well established and popular websites with a lot of visitors. On the other hand Twitter is a much smaller but growing website which is devoted to communication. The important thing about these websites is that they are highly addictive. If we compare the three, there are some compelling trends that can be seen. MySpace focuses heavily on creating and customizing their online profiles whereas Facebook emphasize on different features like interacting with applications, music and people. Twitter addicts are more engaged in exploring sites that allow a user to know what their personal contacts are doing.

Even though Facebook is popular but you just can’t hide yourself on Facebook anymore. There are known problem of managing Facebook if you are a highly known person. Similarly Twitter only good if you invite your friends and connect with them otherwise it is like a typical blog. There is a text box where you can write about your life and all these messages are automatically sent to all of your friends and all their messages appear on yours. Myspace is the cool working class thing for everybody but there are some annoying bands that keep adding you all the time.

Apart from their disadvantages these online communities which are free to join allow you to create your own profile, browse others’ profiles and find people you know. They keep you engaged all the time.