Media - Internet

NEW YORK: You can do a lot with the Internet — except, it seems, satisfactorily measure how people use it. Trackers of Internet usage have recently been tinkering with their methodologies in an attempt to properly reflect the ever-changing patterns of Web users and the shifting face of the Internet itself. Yet instead of providing more clarity, these recent changes are causing confusion among...

A judge is expected to decide this week whether to proceed with a lawsuit that claims Facebook's founder stole source code, trade secrets, and intellectual property from people who hired him to work on a social networking site. U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock is expected to hold a hearing in Boston Tuesday to decide whether to the defendants' motion to dismiss the case. The lawsuit...

Google is expanding its US newspaper print ad sales experiment to involve 225 newspapers and giving all its advertisers the opportunity to place ads in papers covering the major metropolitan areas of the United States. The search giant started the test programme in November by allowing a limited number of advertisers to bid in online auctions for ads in the print edition of 50 US newspapers -...

The Washington Post Co. today is launching LoudounExtra.com, an aggressive online push into hyperlocal journalism, combining traditional reporters and photographers with bloggers, videographers and extensive databases on schools, businesses and churches. If the project is successful, The Post Co. plans to build similar sites for the rest of Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District. The project...

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular search engine, said it will address privacy concerns by reducing the lifetime of ``cookies'' installed on the computers of people who visit its Web site. The cookies, files planted on personal computers to track Internet use, will automatically expire two years after the last visit to Google's site, Peter Fleischer, the company...

Google, the world’s most popular internet search engine, is being taken to court for allegedly deceiving millions of users over links that are paid for by its advertisers. In the first legal action of its kind, Australia’s competition watchdog is seeking an injunction to stop Google from displaying search results that did not “expressly distinguish” advertisements. The Australian Competion and...

NEW YORK: Research firm Nielsen/NetRatings announced that it will change its ratings system for Web sites, placing greater emphasis on the time viewers spend on Web sites rather than how many times a page is viewed, the Los Angeles Times reports today. EMarketer Inc. senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson told the Times that the changes won’t necessarily affect advertising decisions so much as it...

Reporters Without Borders today called on the Saudi authorities to stop blocking Elaph, an Arabic-language news website that is very popular in the Arab world. Access to the site from within Saudi Arabia has been blocked since May 2006. “No government should be able to block access to a website without obtaining a court order first,” the press freedom said. “But this site is an independent and...

Telegraph.co.uk has launched a new blog with the aim of rapidly updating developing breaking news stories. Making News will offer "updates and commentary on the day's stories" throughout a news day. There is a difference between niche comment blogs and breaking news, suggested site editor Marcus Warren. So the new site launched in test phase last week. "I, for one, was more than conscious of the...

AT AN OMMA VIDEO PANEL, reps from major media companies and Web giants knocked heads over who should control the end-user experience for Web videos. "Not being [platform] network agnostic" is the biggest drag on growth for media companies, said Karin Gilford, vice president and general manager, Yahoo Entertainment. "Remove the restrictions," pleaded Scott Levine, director of product marketing, AOL...