YouTube Tests Sreaming Service Live

YouTube is testing its streaming service live on Sept. On Sept. 12 and 13, 2010, YouTube is running a live test of its live streaming service. Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom and Young Hollywood are providing content for the test.

The new platform integrates live streaming directly into YouTube channels. All broadcasters need is a webcam or external USB or FireWire camera.

Included in the test is a “Live Comments” module which lets you engage with the broadcaster and the broader YouTube community.

Based on the results of this initial test, YouTube will evaluate rolling out the platform more broadly to its partners worldwide.

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New Twitter Design and Features Launched

Twitter has crafted a new design featuring scrolling Tweets (no need to click "more"), ability to embed photos and videos, a details pane that shows "additional details."

"Mini profiles" allow users to click a username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

Verizon Introduces "Computing as Service" for Smaller Businesses

Boosting bandwidth, adding more servers and turning up additional storage capacity to meet changing business needs quickly are among the many things small and medium-sized businesses now can do affordably with Verizon's new cloud computing offering, "Computing as a Service, SMB," that can be billed on a credit card.

Verizon's new offering is tailored to companies that have limited IT resources and do not want to own or manage their IT infrastructure. "CaaS SMB" is suited to smaller businesses such as retailers, manufacturers and professional services firms as well as independent departments within larger organizations, Verizon says. It also appeals to online businesses and application developers who want to code, test and stage in a reliable and scalable cloud environment.  All that's needed to get started is a credit card.

With Verizon CaaS SMB, customers can customize the server, storage and network resources required to manage a Web presence or enable company applications.  Unlike many other available cloud offerings, Verizon CaaS SMB offers built-in security including virtual private networks while allowing companies to add more security features.  CaaS SMB also lets companies retain previous computing configurations of their data and servers so data can be easily accessed in the future.

Anchor Text Loses SEO Influence with Google

Using and repeating "Anchor text" used to be one of the top ways search engine optimizers would suggest writers position their text for higher rankings by Google.

But SEO changes all the time, and anchor text might not be as important as it once was. One of the main factors now is getting more links to your domain as a whole, not just the homepage, you need to show Google that you have a whole range of pages that are worth visiting, a domain filled with worthwhile material that is liked and referenced by as many people as possible, one analyst suggests.

In order to benefit you need to get links from as many different unique domains as possible. Some of us might think that an improvement. Instead of SEO "tricks," just do a better job with a site's content.

Anchor Text Loses Influence and Building a Brand Becomes Even More Important

Why Social Now Matters

Why the rush to get into social networking, social media and social ecosystems?

Why T-Mobile is Sprint's best hope

As much as the notion of a T-Mobile USA merger with Sprint has been bandied about and criticized, the ways the two competitors might work together has taken a new tack of late as T-Mobile USA looks for a 4G partner and Clearwire, majority owned by Sprint, looks for expansion capital.

While T-Mobile has not officially announced its own 4G plans, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann stated earlier this year the company was exploring options and will be open to cooperation when it comes to 4G, which could include working with other network operators such as Sprint.

Sprint seems conflicted about allowing T-Mobile USA to become an investor in Clearwire. But such a move would have obvious benefits and some strategic issues as well.

Over time, both firms will probably need to consider bulking up in some way to compete more effectively with Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Getting both carriers on a common LTE platform would solve some important practical issues longer term.

In the nearer term, a T-Mobile USA investment in Clearwire would help both firms in obvious ways.

Why T-Mobile is Sprint's best hope

Text Campaigns are About Immediacy, Email Less So, Exec Says

Immediacy is what differentiates text message marketing from its email counterpart, according to an ExactTarget executive.

While the two channels are complementary ones that should tie together in multichannel campaigns, the campaign that simply mimics an email strategy in mobile will fail.

Consumers expect more immediacy from mobile than email

National Mall Gets Free Wi-Fi

The District of Columbia has launched Wi-Fi along the National Mall.

The new free, wireless hotspots from the project "DC Wi-fi" cover the mall from 3rd Street on the east to 14th Street on the west.

D.C. Offers Free Wi-Fi Along National Mall

Wal-Mart Gets Deeper into Mobile

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that it is introducing the first cell phone plan that uses the chain's own branding, Associated Press reports.

The Wal-Mart Family Mobile service will run on T-Mobile USA's network. Unlimited calling and texting will cost $45 per month for the first line and $25 for each additional line for the family. The service will be offered starting next week in most of its stores across the nation.

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When Kindle Shines

If you absolutely must read your tablet or ebook in bright sunlight, Kindle has an edge. Of course, most of us in the northern hemisphere will not need to do so for a while.

The Struggles of the Middle Class (comScore Voices)

The August 2010 government jobs report showed that unemployment remains stubbornly high at a level of 9.7 percent of the civilian labor force and rose marginally by 0.1 percentage points from July.

The loss of jobs during the current recession has been deeper and more prolonged than was seen in any other recession since World War II.

It isn't yet clear whether there is a "structural" element to the job losses, or whether something "merely" related to continued uncertainty about the business environment which is causing the unusually-deep and protracted job loss pattern.

One suspects there is a structural element, at one level related to recoveries after "financial" induced recessions. The other possible structural element is akin to what happened in many countries as economies changed from "agricultural" to "industrial" stages, and are continuing to evolve from "industrial" to "information" based forms.

The Struggles of the Middle Class (comScore Voices)

Gaming Might Improve Decision Making

There's a significant controversy over the value of games that are designed to improve people's mental faculties, as some studies have indicated that brain training only helps prepare you for similar tasks, while others indicate that general improvements are possible.

But there turns out to be a type of game that is known to boost a variety of skills, from decision making to tracking multiple objects: standard action games. A study, released today by Current Biology attempts to explain how these video games can produce such wide-ranging improvements.

The authors of the study argue that the root of all these tasks involves making a probabilistic inference, where complete information is missing, so people have to make a best guess based on known odds. Video gaming, in their view, increases the efficiency at which people can process the odds and make an accurate decision—gamers simply can do more with less. As a result, any task of this sort sees benefits.

Gamers make faster decisions than nongamers, are just as accurate

More Tweets From Mobile Devices

Since April this year, the number of people using Twitter has risen 27 percent from 106 million to 145 million.

The driving force behind the growth has been the addition of clients that make mobile access easier.

"We quickly understood that we were doing users a disservice by not having a great client on each of the major mobile platforms," said Twitter's CEO, Evan Williams. "So, we took a similar approach with Twitter for BlackBerry and Twitter for Android."

Twitter's mobile site, mobile.twitter.com, was used by 14 percent of users and Twitter's SMS option was used by eight percent of users. Twitter iPhone apps represented eight percent of usage and the BlackBerry app represented seven percent of usage.

More Tweets via mobile

iPad headed to Target?

Will the Apple iPad be sold in Target for the Christmas selling season?

iPad headed to Target on October 3rd? -- Engadget

E.U. Wants to Release Local TV Spectrum to Mobile

The European Commission is poised to back a plan that would divert a portion of the TV broadcast spectrum to mobile operators by 2013.

The proposal is part of a package of broadband changes drafted by Neelie Kroes, the E.U. commissioner for telecommunications, that would require the 27 members of the bloc to set aside the 800 megahertz frequency band for mobile broadband by Jan. 1, 2013.

E.U. to Back Plan for Pan-Euro: