by
10 Comments

Yahoo Social Network To Get KickStart

posted on August 31, 2007

Forgive the title pun – CNet reports that Yahoo! are currently working on a concept social networking service called – you guessed it – KickStart. A LinkedIn style job network to connect college students with potential employers.

Yahoo! KickStart Concept Screenhsot

The features you see in screenshots, like the one above, may never materialise – but if this concept were to get the Sunnyvale green light, never will there have been a truer statement than “it’s who you know, not what you know” — to get an “in” to the company of your dreams you will need an invite from an employee who was also a previous alumnus of your college.

Research surveys are already being conducted among students to discover exactly what they think of this new idea. A Yahoo! spokesperson commented:

by
4 Comments

eBay To Integrate SMS Outbid Alerts

posted on August 31, 2007

eBay eBay is launching its own mobile re-bidding service in the UK, France and Belgium, following a successful test period in Spain – rolled out last September. The service, being delivered by mBlox and Dynetic, will allow users to monitor auctions while on the move and has been designed to scale across all European markets.

Although there are similar, partner services, this official solution will be integrated and will be offered to users as an option during the online bidding process. The service will help users to track higher bids through SMS alerts, so they can react from their handset if they need to increase a bid.

Described as a “fundemental evolution” in Internet auctioning, Ian Jordan, Head of UK Innovation, explains the problem with traditional web-based auctions;

by
0 Comments

More Movers and Shakers

posted on August 30, 2007

Yahoo! In a leaked internal memo to Yahoo! Sales staff, President Susan Decker outlines a management team shake-up “that creates a new division responsible for generating the bulk of the company’s revenue”. [NYTimes]

Here’s a rundown of the full memo issued following Decker’s consultations with Jerry Yang – CEO and Chief Honcho Yahoo!:

  • Greg Coleman, EVP of Global Sales, is out – and will pursue other opportunities by mutual agreement!
  • Hilary Schneider, EVP of Local Markets & Commerce Division (LMC), will head a new “umbrella” division called, Global Partner Solutions (GPS) – encompassing Global Sales, the Online Channel, the Yahoo! Publisher Network, Corporate Partnerships and Hot Jobs
  • Jeff Weiner, EVP Network Division, will take back Schneider’s LMC units having lost them in a previous reorg

by
2 Comments

Net Evangelist Rejects Regulation

posted on August 29, 2007

BBC Radio 4In a BBC Radio 4 interview [podcast], Vint Cerf – known as one of the founding fathers of the Internet – protested that the Internet is merely reflecting society not leading it…

[The net] should not be used as a scapegoat for society’s ills

Cerf, now Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, confirms the Search giant does not have nor wants the responsibility of censoring the Internet, but will respond appropriately to legal issues identified by relevant authorities – citing Google’s position in China as a prime example.

Anyone regulating beyond what was clearly illegal put themselves on a “slippery slope” that could limit freedom of expression.

by
2 Comments

Google CFO Steps Down

posted on August 29, 2007

GooglePlex Google Inc. have announced that Chief Financial Officer, George Reyes, will be stepping down – a move remarked as one of the first departures from its top executive ranks.

Both CEO Eric Schmidt, who worked alongside Reyes at Sun Microsystems, and co-founder Larry Page praised his contribution:

[George was successful in] keeping Google financially disciplined while protecting the company’s entrepreneurial culture.

Some have speculated that Google’s previous lackluster quarter has led to disagreement around the boardroom table regarding the Internet giant’s future strategy – one of diversification led by a massive hiring initiative.

Reyes will assist in the search for his successor in an effort to cut recruitment expenses – a transition hoped to be achieved by the end of the year.

by
1 Comment

Nokia Hits Back With Rival Music Service

posted on August 29, 2007

Nokia Less than three months ago the daddy of mobile handset manufacturers, Nokia, announced a strategy to separate-out its Consumer Internet Services division as a core business unit.

Today the Finnish company will launch a worldwide music download service to rival Apple’s iTunes – having recently felt Apple muscle-in on their turf.

Alongside this move; its mobile content-sharing site, Mosh, and recent acquisition of media-sharing network Twango, are also being closely watched by mobile operators who have failed to make any impact on the music download market.

According to data published by M:Metrics, the research company:

…of the approximately 36m people who listened to music on their mobile phone from April to June in the US and Europe’s five biggest markets, fewer than 14 per cent had downloaded from an operator portal

by
2 Comments

Pushing Gmail A Little Further

posted on August 28, 2007

emoze emoze, a business unit of Emblaze – a new breed of telecoms vendor provisioning advanced solutions for mobile communication – has announced the launch of its push e-mail service for Gmail and Google Mail users (in UK, Germany, Australia).

Push e-mail is used to describe e-mail systems that provide an “always-on” capability, in which new e-mail is instantly and actively transferred (pushed) as it arrives by the mail delivery agent (MDA) (commonly called mail server) to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the e-mail client. Source: Wikipedia

Committed to the democratisation of mobile e-mail, the free service from emoze will be targeting millions of Gmail account holders worldwide that own standard mobile devices. Research Analyst, Cheryl Gutowski, confirms: