Bloglines suffers major outage

 

RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a major outage over the weekend with the service simply ceasing to update any blogs from just before midnight PST February 24.

Threads on the Bloglines forum suggest that the issue is widespread and to date no statement has been issued by Bloglines or IAC/ Ask staff in relation to the issue. A test at 11pm PST shows the most recent stories indexed by Bloglines are over 15 hours old.

Bloglines users are not happy with the outage, with some already signing up for other services, and other comments including such as “Remember when they at least showed the plumber?”

One commenter claims that Bloglines may be about to be shut down:

A buddy who works at ask.com (owners of Bloglines) says that they are discontinuing the service because it makes no money and there will be an announcement tomorrow.

A shutdown is more than unlikely. But users deserve some attention during an outage of this size.

 

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The Premiere of “Nim’s Island”

Here’s Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, and Abigail Breslin at the premiere of their new movie, “Nim’s Island” in Hollywood yesterday. I am so excited about this movie and I can’t wait to see it. I love adventurous, smart kids movies and the fact that Gerard Butler is in it doesn’t hurt either. Gerard and [...]

Miley Cyrus And A Smart Car

 

Looking for a little press or just a plate of good food? Miley Cyrus decided to hit up They Ivy and BOY were the paparazzi excited! Check out the thumbnails to see the crowd loving every minute. And what’s this smart car about? Bauer Griffin says it might be for her new video Girl’s Night [...]

Can’t Get Enough Of Lila Grace

I’m sorry, but this little girl is just too cute! I know I posted pictures of Lila Grace earlier in the day - but it is such a rarity to see that princess. Here she is with mom Kate Moss shopping in the uber chic shop ‘Bonpoint’.
Flynet
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Hayden’s Back!

For a while there Hayden Panettiere was getting really overexposed. There were new sets of pictures of her coming out at least once or twice a day. Then when she and Milo went public she sort of backed out of the spotlight. And I’ve actually missed her! I haven’t put pictures [...]

Madonna Works Out To Britney Spears’ Music

 
Want to have a hot bod like Madonna?  Maybe part of her secret is working out to Britney’s music.  Madonna talked a radio show and admitted that she puts on Blackout to get her sweating.
“I actually love Britney Spears’s new album,” she told New York’s Z100-FM Thursday. “I usually work out to her record. I [...]

Who Needs Ford And Wilhelmina When We Have Tyra Banks?

Best clip ever!! Because that is EXACTLY how I look during that time of the month. Check out Tyra Banks giving modeling advice (with a twist) to her contestants.
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Sound recording predates Edison's phonograph

Also: A low-tech 2010 census? Read these stories and more at News.com Extra.

Windows Live teams up with social networks for contact portability

Robert Scoble couldn't do it, but Windows Live can.

Microsoft's Web-app division announced Tuesday that it has partnered with five social networks--LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo, and yes, Facebook--on a new project to facilitate address book portability. The partner social networks have agreed to use the Windows ...

Richie Sambora Gets A DUI

AHHHHHHH, Why do celebrities do such stupid things?!?! Get a freaking driver already. Richie Sambora was arrested for a DUI last night in Laguna Beach. UsMagazine wrote,
“The Bon Jovi guitarist was detained by local police around 11 p.m. after he was pulled over for driving a Hummer erratically, TMZ says. He failed [...]

Brooke Burke’s Baby Still Has No Name

Poor nameless little guy. Brooke Burke gave birth to a son nearly three weeks ago and still doesn’t know what to call him! She is still “in negotiations” with her husband David Charvet.
“We’ve waiting our whole life for a son, and we haven’t named him. He did leave the hospital without the birth [...]

Why Would Anyone Turn Down A Role In High School Musical???

 
Another Disney teen star, Selena Gomez, was offered a role in High School Musical 3.  And she said no!  I can’t believe that.  I thought any young girl would be dying to be a part of that cast!!! 
Selena said,
“High School Musical 3 is cute, and I think it would be a great opportunity for someone else. [...]

Heidi Klum At The Park

 
Is it me? Or are pictures of Heidi Klum not as fun without one of her quirky comments. You can always count on Heidi for a good laugh. Here she is feeding Johan a snack while enjoying a day at the park sans shoes.

Bauer Griffin
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K-Fed Parties And Britney Hangs Out With The Hoff

 
Kevin Federline celebrated his 30th birthday this past weekend.  He partied it up at Pure and in Las Vegas.  While he was there he hung out with his ex, Shar Jackson and got a special performance by the Pussycat Dolls.  But, it looks like they partied a little too hard.  Kevin drank one too many [...]

Courtney Love Relocating To England

 
Celebrities love to relocate to England!  Courtney Love is now following in Madonna’s footsteps and considering picking up a $10 million dollar home near the Windsor Castle.  Can you imagine being neighbors with royalty?!?
I just always wonder what happens with the kids in cases like these.  Will Frances Bean stay in the U.S.?  Who will [...]

I’m Not Obsessed With…

I’m listening. You asked for a little recap on what was available on the other INO sections. Thanks again for taking my quick survey. Here you go:


Fringe is in.
A gold clutch that is on sale fro $235 to $55!
Fashion Finds: Gwyneth Paltrow’s black boots.
Fashion Finds: Ashlee Simpson
6 amazing beach covers.
Chic flats all for under $25.



Kihel’s [...]

Alicia Silverstone Keeping It Real… I Mean Raw

 
Alicia Silverstone and a male friend went out to eat in the West Village for some healthy food. In my heart of hearts, I wish I wanted to eat so natural. But I can barely get myself to eat a salad! It’s so funny because my son is still obviously eating jarred baby food and [...]

Famous For What?

What a GREAT video!! The rise of the “Famous for Nothing” stars! So many of us feel the same way. Showbiz Tonight broke it down. I read your responses to my Tweak INO poll and am now going to put all the videos under the cut. Apparently, certain videos really slow down the load [...]

He Just Wants Her To Be Happy

 

I choked up a bit when I read this. Ryan Phillippe was asked by Howard Stern what he thought about Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan answered respectfully. I think think it is such a shame that Ryan and Reese Witherspoon couldn’t work things out - but so is life. In the end, they have kids and [...]

Help Make INO A Better Place

Click here to take a 10 question survey to help me improve INO.  I’ve been noticing a lot of performance issues while on Wordpress and am moving over to a more powerful tool. I just need to know what to change and what to keep the same. 3 minutes max!!
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Celebrities With Their Children

Don’t Marcia Cross and Naomi Watts look like they would make good friends? Both ladies aren’t addicted to fame, are really secure with who they are, and seem really hands on with their children. Set up a play date!! Marcia was out at a park letting her little girl get some practice walking [...]

Nicole Kidman And Naomi Watts Will Be Neighbors

 
Aww, I thought this story was really sweet.  UsMagazine is reporting that Nicole Kidman is house hunting and she really wants to find something right near Naomi Watts.
“Nicole had her people call Naomi’s next-door neighbors to ask if they would be interested in selling their house — even though it wasn’t on the market,” a [...]

Madonna At The Gym

 
Madonna was spotted heading for the gym yesterday…which is actually just the house next door to where she lives in London.  It was converted into a gym just for her.  She’s going to work out because you know, she really should exercise more.  She’s definitely not ripped enough as it is :P  In all honesty [...]

This week in awesomeness: 20 years ago, we all got Rickrolled

Two decades ago this week--on March 12, 1988--the corny pop song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

What does this have to do with the Internet? Oh, just about everything.

For those of you who actually have lives and

...

Maybe Impetigo Is Itchy?

I don’t think so. Those look like perfect cuts to me - like as if Amy Winehouse used something very sharp to make them. Nails wouldn’t be so uniform… uh oh. These pictures were taken yesterday.
WENN
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ONE DAY CONTEST

Tristan Prettyman has partnerd up with Elwood Clothing to help promote a brand new album! And INO has one of these dresses to give away to do so! How adorable! Tristan is a surfer from San Diego with a laid back acoustic vibe and the clothing fits her style perfectly.
Tristan Prettyman’s album, Hello, will [...]

Angelina Jolie With Her Kids In New Orleans

images removedAngelina Jolie and the gang popped in to New Orleans for a bit to visit Brad Pitt. He’s currently there start working on his Make It Work project (building affordable homes for Hurricane Katrina victims). Ahhhh, the fact that he’s a humanitarian just makes him that much more attractive Bill [...]

Drew Barrymore In Domino Magazine

 
Drew Barrymore is on the cover of Domino this month. She also sat down for an interview with the magazine to talk about her production company, Flower Films.
On moving Flower Films from a bleak bungalow in Warner Bro’s to a Deco-style building:
“Fun is always the first order of business. I feel there are no rules.”
Each [...]

Celebrities Going Shopping

Forever 21, Intermix and Fred Segal - sounds like a typical day for me too. Britney Spears waited on line like the rest of us common folk as she did some damage at Forever 21.  She really likes that store doesn’t she?

Rebecca Gayheart went shopping at Fred Segal in West Hollywood with a [...]

Nicole Richie For DCMA

I could totally see Nicole Richie having a successful clothing store. She definitely loves clothes. But I wonder how involved she really will be after the first batch of clothes are chosen. If I lived in LA, I would go check this one out for sure. Here she is with Paris Hilton and the Madden [...]

Do You Have 4 Minutes To Save The World?

This just in! Sneak peek of Justin Timberlake and Madonna’s new song HERE. They won’t let me embed - so take a listen and tell me what you think.
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Afternoon Links

Pamela Anderson arrived to the airport yesterday and tried to hide from the paparazzi.
Tom Cruise celebrates his birthday with a Scientology cruise.
Lori Loughlin can still work it!
Avril Lavigne is like a ninja on stage!
Who is beating up Courteney Cox?  She has a huge bruise on her arm.
The cast of How I Met Your Mother are [...]

Jamie Lynn Spears Getting Mexican Food

 
Jamie Lynn Spears was spotted leaving a Mexican restaurant with a few t-shirts that she showed off to the paparazzi.  I guess the food was so good she wanted to bring home a little souvenir!  I’m glad to see her out looking happy and well.  I can only imagine the mental stress that a young [...]

Alexis Bledel & America Ferrera At ShoWest

Alexis Bledel and America Ferrera posed for photographs at the Warner Bros. Presents. “The Big Picture ‘08” during ShoWest in Las Vegas, Nevada. I love both these ladies and they looked lovely at the Warner Bros. event. Alexis and America will be starring in, “The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants” which comes out August [...]

Morning Links

We haven’t seen much of Vanessa Minnillo lately. Here she is at a hotel in Miami.
Tori Spelling just continues giving us way too much information! Some things should stay personal, Tori!
Is she or isn’t she? Will Rachael Ray get the ax? This debate is on fire!
Selma Blair in an itsy bitsy polka dot bikini. [...]

Lauren Conrad Before Her Fashion Show

 
Yikes!  I wonder if Lauren Conrad was nervous to present her line for L.A. Fashion Week!  Her smile looks kind of unsure in some of these pictures.  But that’s to be expected…I’m sure she knows that if it stinks it will be all over the blogs the next day.  If you want to see some of [...]

Madonna Admits To Stage Anxiety

What?!! You mean Madonna is human after all? :)  I think this was a very brave thing to do as we would have never guessed she suffered from anxiety while on stage.
“I have moments where I feel incredibly invincible and know that I have the audience in my hand - I know that everything is [...]

Justin Timberlake Dropped His Pants For Madonna

 
This story had me rolling!!!!!!!! When Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night Justin Timberlake thought it would be funny to give a little anecdote about what a control freak she really is. He said one time he wasn’t feeling well and Madonna asked him if he [...]

Janet Jackson Hospitalized For The Flu

Shortness of breath caused Janet Jackson’s people to take her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles late last night. Boy that bug is going around!! Hitting the press circuit hard isn’t helping her get better either. Janet’s rep says she is doing better today.
“Janet is fine. She’s just battling this flu like everyone [...]

Bloglines suffers major outage

 

RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a major outage over the weekend with the service simply ceasing to update any blogs from just before midnight PST February 24.

Threads on the Bloglines forum suggest that the issue is widespread and to date no statement has been issued by Bloglines or IAC/ Ask staff in relation to the issue. A test at 11pm PST shows the most recent stories indexed by Bloglines are over 15 hours old.

Bloglines users are not happy with the outage, with some already signing up for other services, and other comments including such as “Remember when they at least showed the plumber?”

One commenter claims that Bloglines may be about to be shut down:

A buddy who works at ask.com (owners of Bloglines) says that they are discontinuing the service because it makes no money and there will be an announcement tomorrow.

A shutdown is more than unlikely. But users deserve some attention during an outage of this size.

 

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Jessica Simpson Leaves For Kuwait

 
A while back we heard that Jessica Simpson and the Pussycat Dolls were going to head overseas to entertain the troops…looks like the trip has become a reality.  Here are a few pictures of Jessica at the airport heading out to Kuwait.  Did anyone else notice the buttons on her shirt?  They say, “Peace, stop [...]

Sanjaya Performs At Long Island Bat Mitzvah

I HAD to write this story for three reasons.
A) Newsday is covering it and I just did an interview with them!!! It should release on the 19th. So excited!!
B) Sanjaya is taking everything he’s learned on American Idol and is now performing at Bat Mitzvahs.
C) I needed a hair update on the boy.
So here he [...]

Kelly Clarkson And Avril Lavigne On Tour

 

Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne are both out on tour right now.  I believe Avril is just starting while Kelly is already wrapping things up.  Both ladies look pretty into things up on stage…seeing singers put on their performance faces cracks me up!

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Dita Von Teese At Crazy Horse

 
Dita Von Teese stopped at MGM’s Crazy Horse Paris in Las Vegas yesterday.  As usual she looks gorgeous and glam.  I think I love seeing her so much just because it’s nice to look at someone who doesn’t fit in the Hollywood cookie-cutter stereotype of beauty.

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Catching Up With The Hills

 
Well, since I found pictures and news on all three ladies of The Hills I thought we’d do a mega post and catch up on what Lauren Conrad, Audrina Patridge and Heidi Montag have been up to these days.  L.C. was seen out shopping at Rock and Republic and then grabbing a bite to eat [...]

Britney Spears To Pay Her Father $2,500 Per Week

 
The court has ordered Britney Spears to pay her father, Jamie, $2,500 per week in compensation.  They’ve also authorized him to lease a car.  That makes no sense since Jamie already has a car!  Britney has been ordered to pay her court appointed lawyer $58,800, and her psychiatrist was given court approval to hire two more doctors for a fee [...]

Blind Item

 
Which mournful solo artist is obsessed with his own level of fame? After convincing himself on a recent flight to Australia that he would be mobbed in the streets, the scrawny singer was nonplussed that most Aussies didn’t recognize him.
Mournful? James Blunt? Doesn’t he have that Goodbye Lover song that was a hit at funerals [...]

Paris Hilton To Join Nicole Richie On Broadway

 
I am just waiting for one of their reps to come out and deny this rumor. PLEASE DENY THIS RUMOR ALREADY!
So, a few days ago we learned that Nicole Richie might join the cast of Chicago on Broadway. NOW the latest is the producers of the Broadway hit are trying to convince Paris Hilton to [...]

Rihanna And Chris Brown Going Strong

Despite quotes from Rihanna saying she is single and just having fun, it is pretty obvious that she is into Chris Brown. And by the looks of these pictures, Chris is feeling Rihanna as well. So happy for them. For some reason, this couple really makes sense.  When she was linked to Shia, I almost [...]

Miley Cyrus Giving The Peace Sign

Why do I have to keep reminding myself that Miley Cyrus can’t legally drive yet? She looks and acts so much older than a typical mid teenager. Here she is picking up a drink at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Did you drink tea or coffee at 16?

Bauer Griffin
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J-Lo Is Going All Out For The Babies

 
More crazy news about J-Lo and her babies just keeps coming in…Jennifer and Marc are doing everything in their power to make sure that little Max and Emme have the most amazing childhood ever. 
Here’s just a few things on the list:

She had the nursery painted a beautiful aquamarine and light blue - colors which are supposed to have intelligence [...]

Penelope Cruz Doesn’t Believe In Marriage

Right now it’s hot in Hollywood to say you don’t believe in marriage.  Penelope Cruz was the most recent celebrity to join the club, right after her pal Salma Hayek also spoke out about having no plans to wed her baby daddy.  Salma said,
“I don’t have a need for marriage. You want to grow old with someone, you [...]

IAC’s launch of gaming site InstantAction imminent

 

 

IAC, the parent company of Ask.com, is looking to get into online gaming in a big way. According to Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org, IAC’s is looking to spend $50-100 million to build their new gaming portal, InstantAction into something that carries titles with “deeper” interactivity than the casual fare typically found online.

The site is currently looking for sign-ups for their beta phase, and it promises to deliver games that sit in the spot so far largely unexploited between casual online gaming and full-on console or computer games. From watching the demo video on the front page of the new gaming site, the games do look to be some of the most graphically complex I have seen that promise to run in-browser. It is probably safe to assume that a lot of that money slated to be invested in the new venture is going into resource management development.

IAC’s drive to build InstantAction in a sure hit surely stems from the conglomerate’s purchase last year of GarageGames. It doesn’t appear to want to make a small splash. But the timing seems odd for such a major development, what with all of the recent layoffs at the Ask search portal. It leaves one feeling a bit curious when a company with some outstanding corporate questions is seen throwing this much money at a fairly unproven product category.

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MyKinda heads for the deadpool

 

 

I just got word from MyKinda founder Lee Wilkins that he plans to shutdown the Eastern European blog network later today.

The network launched just last September and was being bootstrapped. 

Wilkins says the shutdown is temporary to ensure that money due to writers doesn’t continue to add up. The sites will remain down until, he says, “we redefine a more profitable sustainable business model.” The company had total expenses of about €319,000, with no advertising revenue to offset it. Wilkins capitalized the company with €175,000, leaving €144,000 or so in unpaid debts.

MyKinda joins the DeadPool for now. Hopefully we’ll see them relaunch down the road, and continue to cover tech and other news in Eastern Europe.

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Wedding website buys wedding magazine

 

 

You know the media world has been turned upside down when Websites start buying magazines. Today, the Knot, which operates the wedding site of the same name, acquired The Bump, a group of local magazines and maternity guides in 11 cities. Terms were not disclosed.

In an effort to reduce the natural churn of its audience (who needs to check a wedding site after the big day is over?), the Knot created other bookend lifestyle sites—TheNest for newlyweds, and TheNestBaby for new parents. So what does a Website need magazines for? The Bump is distributed in OB/GYN offices and could help channel readers to TheNestBaby. The Knot can also use it to sell combined print/Web advertising packages.

It’s got to do something to drive traffic. TheNestBaby barely registers on comScore, with only 171,000 unique visitors in the U.S. in January, compared to the TheKnot’s 1.8 million (which itself shot up in January after a few months of decline). Maybe print isn’t dead after all. I wonder if we are going to see more Web-buy-print deals, especially in niche media.

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Amazon offering user Generated Video Hosting

 

 

Amazon has quietly entered the video hosting and monetization game with Your Video Widget.

Your Video Widget allows any registered Amazon Affiliate to upload a video and then select products that can be displayed as the video progresses (demo above). Video content can be anything from a product review through to a holiday video, but there are some restrictions; users can not include a URL in the video, or feature availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information for any product in the video itself, on top of the usual porn and piracy restrictions. Users can pick any products they would like to be displayed, with Amazon suggesting only that they work better if they have some context to the video, and that no two products can appear within 10 seconds of each other.

Like all Amazon Affiliate related advertising, the ads served are paid as a percentage of generated sales, and are not offered on a CPC or CPM basis.

Maximum file size is 100mb, length 10 minutes, and accepted formats are avi, flv, mov, mpg, wmv.

Amazon Video Widgets do not come with a central portal where you are able to view videos YouTube style, so this product wont compete in that space. For those looking at new ways of monetizing their videos, be it either because they are unable to sign up to YouTube’s program, or are not getting good results from YouTube, Amazon Video Widgets provide another path to video monetization.

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The markets didn't react well to Google advertising figures

 

 

Google’s stock took a big hit today—still down 4 percent to $465—on comScore data suggesting that the click-through rate on its paid search ads is decelerating. As the chart above from Bear Stearns shows, the year-over-year growth of paid clicks on Google in the U.S. went from 37 percent in October to 0.3 percent in January. Since these are year-over-year numbers, seasonality is accounted for (there are more clicks in the months leading up to Christmas than after, but this January should not be flat with last January).

 

 

One explanation Wall Street analysts are putting out there today is that this could be an indicator that Google is not immune to the general economic slowdown. While a recession may be coming, that explanation is not convincing. Yahoo would have felt it as well, yet comScore reported a 15 percent year-over-year growth in paid clicks for Yahoo in January (to 242 million, compared to Google’s 532 million). Also, as Bill Tancer at Hitwise points out, traffic from Google to shopping sites is still above last year’s levels (evidence that paid clicks may actually be improving).

 

 

 

 

A more likely explanation is that Google is tightening the reins on clicks to combat click fraud and generate better clicks in general. Also the correlation between comScore’s click-through estimates and Google’s revenues has been highly inconsistent in the past. It definitely isn’t a one-to-one correlation. For instance, in the fourth quarter of 2007, comScore showed a 25 percent year-over-year paid click-through growth rate, yet Google’s actual U.S. revenues grew 46 percent. In the third quarter of last year, comScore showed a 48 percent growth rate for paid clicks, compared to an actual 58 percent growth in revenues. Sequential quarter-over-quarter comparisons are even more all over the map, according to calculations by JPMorgan.

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Yelp raises $15 million fourth round, valuation $200 Million

 

 

Yelp, the popular local review site, has just closed a $15 million dollar round led by DAG Ventures, with a valuation of $200 Million. Yelp says that they will be using the money to expand geographically, add onto their sales team, and establish a second office in New York City. This is Yelp’s fourth round of funding, and has now taken $31 million since their founding in 2004.

Yelp is also boasting some impressive stats: 8.3 million uniques in the past 30 days and over 2.3 million reviews (with the 1 million mark being reached on May 2007). Yelp is in a competitive space with Citysearch, InsiderPages, and YellowBot.

With this latest round, DAG joins previous investors Max Levchin ($1 million, Summer 2004), Bessemer Venture Partners ($5 million, Q4 2005), and Benchmark Capital ($10 million, Q4 2006).

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Google heads under the sea with cable investment

 

 

Google has announced that it has joined a consortium to build a new trans-Pacific cable between Japan and California.

The Unity consortium is a joint effort by Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel and will initially increase Trans–Pacific lit cable capacity by about 20 percent, with the potential to add up to 7.68 Terabits per second.

Google’s Manager of Network Acquisitions, Francois Sterin, explains the deal:

“[Google’s] participation in building Unity ultimately helps provide our users with faster and more reliable connectivity.

If you’re wondering whether [Google is] going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no. We’re not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we’ve exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we’re delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.”

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Digg clone Yahoo Buzz launches

 

 

Yahoo launches Yahoo Buzz - a Digg-like site that takes stories from pre-approved news publishers (100 to start) and let’s users vote on stories and push them up to the top of the page.

Like Digg, the more users that vote for a story, via the embedded button or on the Buzz site, the higher the story goes on Buzz. But user voting isn’t the only factor in how well stories do. Yahoo is also looking at their search engine logs in real time to determine hot or breaking news. Stories on that topic will get an extra boost in the rankings.

But there’s another part of Buzz that will get publishers excited - every day a few of the most popular stories will also be featured on the Yahoo home page. Yahoo has been experimenting with linking to third party news directly from their home page since last year. In one case, the Buzz team told me, 2 million visitors were sent to Wired for a linked article in the two hours it was on the Yahoo home page. 2-3 stories from Buzz will go on the Yahoo home page daily.

Buzz has categories including entertainment, world news, U.S. news, sports, business, health, and travel. Images and video are also separate categories.

Of course, many publishers won’t be able to handle that kind of traffic flow. But Yahoo is also prepared for that. Smaller sites will only be linked on a fraction of the total home page views - in effect, Yahoo is turning down the firehose for those that can’t handle it.

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Glam raises $85 million

 

 

Brisbane, California based Glam Media reported an $85 million round of financing, their fourth, today. We first reported that Glam was looking to raise as much as $200 million in August 2007. 

The round was $65 million in cash and $20 million in debt, on top of almost $30 million they raised in three prior rounds. Investors included Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Accel, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Information Capital. The valuation, as expected, was in the half billion dollar range.

The company, according to their original offering document is not yet profitable. They lost around $3.7 million on $21 million in revenue in 2007. 2008 projected revenues are $150 million and $40 million in profit.

Glam operates a number of small sites geared towards women. Glam.com is the main anchor with the largest reach among these properties, but other owned sites appear to be pure SEO plays like free-beauty-tips.com and celebrity-hairstyles.org. They also sell advertisements for other sites, which make up the vast bulk of its page views.

As an ad network Glam may find its margins squeezed as competition increases. Still, they control a lot of page views. Comscore reports that worldwide uniques across all sites that Glam sells advertising for had nearly 47 million unique visitors and 1.1 billion page views. That’s 4x the unique visitors and 11x the page views from a year ago.

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