Carolina Rustica CEO Spills SEO Secrets - I like this :-)

Found the following info published by at is very interesting.

 

Content is king
This is the single most important consideration for optimizing your Website. Yet it's amazing how many Website owners and designers neglect Website content.

You should be an expert on the products you sell, and be able to address any conceivable questions customers may have, either on your product pages, or in your FAQ's, or elsewhere. Including customer reviews on your site is a great way to accomplish this. ...........

Amazon Turns Numbers Cruncher

Amazon Thursday added Hadoop number crunching to its other cloud skills.

It's put out a public beta of a new Web Service called Elastic MapReduce for processing vast amounts of data using a hosted Hadoop framework running on its giant EC2/S3 infrastructure.

It says the widgetry can instantly provision as much or as little capacity as the user wants to do data-intensive tasks for distributed applications such as web indexing, data mining, log file analysis, machine learning, financial analysis, scientific simulation and bioinformatics research at pay-as-you-go prices.

Amazon claims it's taken the pain out of running Hadoop, which - like other MapReduce-based clusters - used to involve time-consuming set-up, management and cluster tuning.

With Elastic MapReduce, it says, users should be able spin up and tear down Hadoop clusters at "a moment's notice."

It's got sample applications and tutorials to show people how.

Amazon Web Services VP of product management and developer relations Adam Selipsky said some researchers and developers had been running Hadoop on EC2 for large-scale data analysis and asked for simpler tools.

Amazon explained that Elastic MapReduce automatically launches and configures the number and kind of EC2 instances a customer specifies, then kicks off a Hadoop implementation of the MapReduce programming model, which loads large amounts of user input data from S3 and subdivides it for parallel processing using EC2 instances.

 

As the processing is completed, data is re-combined and reduced into a final solution, and the results returned to S3.

Users can configure, manipulate and monitor job flows through web service APIs or the AWS Management Console.

Google in talks to take over Twitter

US Internet giant Google is in negotiations to acquire micro-blogging sensation Twitter for over 250 million dollars, technology blog TechCrunch reported on Friday.

Citing two sources familiar with the matter, TechCrunch said Google would be making an offer below the 500 million dollars Facebook proposed to Twitter a few months ago, and would pay in cash or publicly valued stock.

"Why would Google want Twitter? We've been arguing for some time that Twitter's real value is in search," said the blog's Michael Harrington.

"It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn't even have a horse in the game."

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has seen a dizzying surge in popularity since it was launched in August 2006, but has been unable so far to generate revenue.

But Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said last week that he expected finding ways to pump cash in the fast-growing free service, including possibly charging fees for commercial accounts used by businesses.

Stone said that Twitter remains focused on growth. The California-based company claims to have more than six million users and a "phenomenal growth rate" of 900 percent in the past year.

Harrington noted that if the deal goes through, it would be the second sale by Twitter's founders to Google. Five years ago, the micro-blogging site had sold the blog-making website "Blogger" to the search engine.

Twitter co-founder wants to build 'independent' company

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said Friday following a report that Google was seeking to purchase the hot micro-blogging service that his goal was to build a "profitable, independent company."

Stone, in a brief post on the Twitter blog, said that "it should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects.

"Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we're just getting started," Stone said in the post, which he called "a response to the latest Internet speculation about where Twitter is headed."

Stone's comments came hours after influential technology blogger Michael Arrington, writing on his blog TechCrunch, said Internet search giant Google was in talks to acquire the hot San Francisco-based startup.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Arrington said the price was unknown but it was likely to be "well, well north" of the 250-million-dollar valuation placed on Twitter in a recent round of venture capital funding.

Arrington said Google would pay cash or publicly valued stock for Twitter, which turned down a 500-million-dollar takeover offer from social network colossus Facebook just a few months ago.

Arrington initially reported that Google and Twitter were in "late-stage negotiations" but he backed off that assertion slightly in a later post in which he said the acquisition talks were "still fairly early stage."

Kara Swisher, another respected Silicon Valley blogger, writing on her blog Boomtown, dismissed the report by rival TechCrunch.

"While the 'news' that Google was in 'late-stage' talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn?t accurate in any way," Swisher said.

Swisher said the two firms have held "product-related discussions" around "real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service."

"No negotiations, no deal, nada," she quoted an unnamed source as saying.

Twitter's potential as a real-time search engine has sparked recurring bouts of speculation that Google may be interested in buying the company.

"We've been arguing for some time that Twitter's real value is in search," Arrington noted. "It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn't even have a horse in the game."

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt took some flak earlier this year for calling Twitter a "poor man's e-mail" but backed away from the description in later comments saying "we admire Twitter."

"We think Twitter did a very good job of exposing a whole new way to communicate," he said.

But he said Google was not in the market for acquisitions at the moment.

"I'm not sure prices are at their low yet," Schmidt said. "The situation globally is pretty dire. We are certainly looking. We haven't seen anything yet that was really exciting."

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has seen a dizzying surge in popularity since it was launched in August 2006, but has been unable so far to generate revenue.

Stone said last week that he expected to find ways to pump cash into the fast-growing free service, including possibly charging fees for commercial accounts used by businesses.

Stone this week also unveiled plans to feature a search box more prominently on the Twitter home page.

Jeff Mann, a vice president at market research firm Gartner, said a Google-Twitter deal makes sense.

"Twitter is attractive," he said, as a "constantly growing, twitching, seething real-time source of comments, news and opinions.

"The culture and ambitions of Twitter and Google match," Mann said. "Now is the time for Twitter to sell. It is at the top of its hype range now. Monetizing on its own would be a long, hard slog."

Microsoft Claims Netbook OS Dominance as Linux Lags

In the growing netbook market, where it once lagged well behind its open-source competition, Microsoft is now proclaiming operating-system dominance.

According to the NPD Group, the growth of Windows on netbook PCs has skyrocketed over the past year. Microsoft has grown Windows' netbook market share from less than 10 percent in the first half of 2008 to a whopping 96 percent as of February 2009.

"It's hard to believe it's been a year since we first started to see netbook PCs running Windows come to market," said Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft's Windows blogger. "Little did we know that these devices would evolve so much in such a short time. A year ago, they were Internet-centric devices defined mainly by their tiny size and low cost. An interesting concept perhaps, but sales didn't really take off until the category evolved into the more capable small notebook PCs we see on the market today."

Evolution of the Netbook

Early netbook models were Internet-centric, with a seven-inch screen, a small keyboard and slow processors. This early generation offered 512MB of RAM -- or less -- and up to 4GB of solid-state storage at most. Today's netbooks are far more powerful, with nine- or 10-inch screens, near full-sized keyboards, 1GB of RAM and up to 16GB of storage.

"Initially, some in the industry viewed low-cost netbook PCs as a new challenge for Microsoft and an opportunity for Linux to make inroads in the consumer market. Some believed consumers wouldn't want or need their netbook PC to be a full-featured PC," LeBlanc said, noting that the opposite is true.

Not only are people overwhelmingly buying Windows netbooks, but LeBlanc said those who try Linux netbooks are often returning them. He points to public reports from netbook manufacturers and Linux distributors that reveal a Linux return rate that is four times higher than Windows. LeBlanc suspects this is because users expect the Windows experience.

"When they realize their Linux-based netbook PC doesn't deliver that same quality of experience, they get frustrated and take it back," LeBlanc said. "Here's a telling stat: In the UK, Carphone Warehouse dropped Linux-based netbook PCs, citing customer confusion as a reason for a whopping one-in-five return rate."

More Options with Windows

Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, confirms Windows' success on netbooks. He cites two reasons: Consumers prefer the operating system they know, and they want an OS that has the greatest availability of applications. Consumers may not be looking to edit video or play hard-core games on a netbook, he said, but they might want to load Quicken to do some bookkeeping.

"Some people still perceive netbooks to be a very limited-purpose device. The notion was all you could do on a netbook is Web-based computing. You can store your documents online. You can check your e-mail. You can surf the Internet and that's all you do," Greengart said. "If that was the case, then the operating system really wouldn't matter, and yet we see that it does. Consumers are treating these more like second or third PCs in the home rather than a strictly limited-purpose device."

Sun unmoored as acquisition talks hit standstill

Without IBM Corp.'s $7 billion takeover offer, Sun Microsystems Inc., a Silicon Valley rebel known for independence, is possibly alone again. Unless a new suitor somehow emerges, Sun will have to overcome the wobbly finances that forced it to shop itself around.

Sun's shares tumbled 23 percent Monday to close at $6.56, a day after talks between the corporate computing rivals fell apart.

The two sides had been nearing an agreement before the weekend. But Sun balked at IBM's last price of $9.40 per share, which had come down from earlier offers but still was about double Sun's stock price before word of the negotiations leaked last month. Sun canceled IBM's exclusive negotiating rights, and IBM withdrew its offer, people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. These people requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to disclose details of the talks.

IBM and Sun might still end up together. Investors appear to be taking that prospect into account, as Sun's stock hasn't fallen all the way back to the $4 to $5 range it occupied before the acquisition discussions surfaced.

Even so, the public unraveling of the talks is an embarrassment for Sun, which has been dogged by billions in losses since the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. The breakdown could be a boon for IBM, which doesn't need the deal as badly, and now could demand an even cheaper price if Sun's investors hammer the company for rebuffing the offer.

Sun's Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz, whose peace offerings to former enemies like IBM paved the way for the once-hard-to-imagine deal talks, could get caught in the fallout.

The situation is reminiscent of what happened last year to Yahoo Inc., which rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. Yahoo shareholders howled about the squandered opportunity, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang later stepped down as CEO. Yahoo's stock now trades for less than half the price Microsoft offered.

"Let's hope that Sun doesn't go down the same path as Yahoo," said Rick Hanna, equity analyst with Morningstar Inc. "I hope this wasn't a brinksmanship play by the company's board, because there really are so few suitors for the company. A deal has to happen for Sun long term. I just can't see them remaining independent."

Sun said in a statement Monday that it is "committed to its leadership team, growth strategy and building value for its shareholders" but wouldn't comment further.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services warned it might downgrade Sun's credit rating if Sun stays an independent company, blaming weak operating performance.

Analysts have been predicting Sun's demise as an standalone company for years, but the recession sharpened the company's problems. Sun has already cut thousands of jobs over the past few years and has about 33,500 employees now.

One hang-up in the talks with IBM has been the terms of a commitment from IBM that it will see the deal through even if antitrust regulators raise objections.

The two companies overlap in several areas that could draw antitrust scrutiny, particularly tape-based data storage, where together IBM and Sun would own 52 percent of a $3.1 billion market. The companies also would have 65 percent of $17.2 billion market for high-end server computers that run the Unix operating system, according to market research firm IDC.

It's not clear whether Sun has other potential partners waiting in the wings. The list of other possible buyers is very short: Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are a few options, though none has publicly expressed interest.

Analyst Bob Djurdjevic, president of Annex Research Inc., said the premium IBM was offering was better than anything Sun could expect from other potential buyers in this rocky economy.

"My first thought was, oh my God, these guys are off their rockers — IBM threw them a rope, and they used it to make a noose," Djurdjevic said.

One reason IBM is interested in Sun is to claim more control over the development of the Java programming language, which Sun invented and is widely used to develop applications for Web sites and mobile phones. Another is Sun's MySQL database software, which is used by Web sites and would strengthen IBM's challenge against Oracle Corp., the leader in database products. Both types of software are open-source, which means their underlying code is distributed freely over the Internet. Companies make money off open-source software by selling support services.

IBM believes it can cash in on Sun's software better than Sun can, because IBM has broader services and software offerings that it can sell as package deals.

Sun has long cultivated a go-it-alone attitude, epitomized by co-founder and former CEO Scott McNealy's relentless mocking of rivals like IBM and Microsoft. That posturing has been tamped down in recent years under Schwartz.

While Sun still has big sales — $13.3 billion over the last four quarters — it has struggled to turn a consistent profit, losing $1.9 billion in the same period.

Its biggest areas have been hurting. Its server division's sales fell $225 million in the latest quarter to $1.37 billion. The storage division's sales fell $85 million to $570 million.

As a result, Sun might have to resort to more drastic cuts, including layoffs or shedding business units, if no deal is reached.

Jean Bozman, a research vice president for IDC, said Sun could survive as an independent company, but "what they have to become is more profitable than they've been. The question is, what size company would they be?"

Meanwhile, IBM has fared well because of constant cost-cutting and the Armonk, N.Y.-based company's increasing reliance on services and software, which can be more profitable than hardware sales. IBM earned $12.3 billion last year.

IBM shares fell 66 cents to $101.65 Monday, along with the market's broader decline.

Australia to build $31 billion broadband network

Australia's government will build a A$43 billion ($30.7 billion) national high-speed fiber-optic broadband network, rejecting bids in a controversial tender involving some of the country's top telecoms firms.

In a surprise decision, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Tuesday the government would ask private companies to join a new private-public firm to build the network, which would be up to 100 times faster than the current network.

Australia has slower and more expensive Internet services than many developed countries, raising concerns about competitiveness, but the project will be made more difficult by the country's vast distances and inhospitable terrain.

The government would sell its majority stake after five years when the network, which still requires approval from parliament, was fully operational.

The center-left government had been expected to announce the winner of a tender to build the network, which was central to Rudd's winning election campaign in late 2007.

"It's time for us to bite the bullet on this. The initiative announced today is a historic nation-building investment focused on Australia's long-term national interest," Rudd told reporters at parliament.

A consortium comprising wealthy Australian businessmen and telecoms industry veterans had been favorite to win the project ahead of Optus, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications, and Canada's Axia NetMedia.

The tender process was enveloped in controversy after the country's largest phone company, Telstra Corp, was dumped from the running in December, after the government panel overseeing bids said its proposal did not fit requirements.

The network will be Australia's biggest reliance yet on public-private partnerships and underscores Rudd's preference for government intervention amid a bruising global financial crisis.

Telstra shares were up 3.1 percent at A$3.31 by 10:20 p.m. EDT after rising to as high as A$3.37 amid expectations the company could bid afresh to be part of the project, though communications and business strategy analyst Ross Dawson said the decision was a blow for Telstra. The broader market was off 0.8 percent.

"This is not good news for Telstra. Essentially up until now Telstra has had a monopoly on access to the home and connectivity," Dawson said.

"Telstra will need to reposition, as indeed will other telcos, to say what value-added services they provide."

In Singapore, SingTel shares rose 0.8 percent, beating a 2 percent drop on the broader share market.

TELSTRA "LOOKS FORWARD" TO TALKS

Telstra Chairman Donald McGauchie said in a statement the company expected little short to medium-term financial impact on its business and looked forward to "constructive discussions" with the government as soon as possible.

Rudd said the new network would be built with money from a A$20 billion national infrastructure fund and the sale of bonds, following an initial government investment of A$4.7 billion. Private sector investment would be capped at 49 percent.

It adds to A$78 billion in economic stimulus measures announced by the government since September to help shield the stalling economy.

The network would operate on a wholesale-only, open access basis, separating retail operations and allowing Optus, Telstra and other companies to build services into the system.

The fiber-to-the-home scheme would be the largest infrastructure project in Australia's history, Rudd said, and would support up to 37,000 jobs as the country teeters on the edge of an expected recession that is likely to push the jobless rate above 7 percent next year.

Around 90 percent of homes would be connected to a network with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. The network would add A$37 billion to the national economy through added productivity, analysts said.

Rudd estimated building the network would take 7-8 years, presenting a risk that voters could be alienated by the long delay as the government faces re-election late next year.

"We've delivered an enhanced election commitment. We're actually delivering faster speeds to more people," Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told Reuters, shaking off concerns that the scrapped tender could anger voters and big telcos.

"The global financial crisis impacted right in the middle of the process. The crisis landed right on top of (telcos), the money dried up for everyone," Conroy said, adding Telstra would now be invited back into the process.