Is Search Engine Bing Losing Its Luster? It Took A Whacking In December

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Is Search Engine Bing Losing Its Luster? It Took A Whacking In DecemberBing, the rising star from the Microsoft empire was on a roll just a month ago it seemed, spilling out new features rapidly and inhaling market share.

December was quite the turn around for the engine, which watched its market share drop from 10.7% to 9.9%. That works out to an 7.5% drop in Bing market share, month over month.

Admittedly, this is merely a one month dip to date, but such a large shift is hard to ignore. If this trend continues for the next two months, Bing will have experienced a full quarter of problems.

Total searches for December: 9.9 billion. This of course means that it is at the moment quite simple to calculate market share. You get 10% for every billion searches you serve a month. Bing: 986 million, which rounds to 9.9%.

According to analytics tracking firm Compete, Bing saw a 3% rise in total unique visits, and nearly a 7% rise in total visits. Both numbers are impressive for a website of Bings size. The estimated 7% rise in visits worked out to  a rise of twenty million visits in December.

Something to note: the compete data claims that Bing had just shy of 300 million visits in December. It seems unlikely that Bing averaged some three searches per visit, so the two data sources seems to conflict somewhat.

Taken all together: Bing is still growing, but Google has resumed its dominant, expansive position. Bing needs to work harder to differentiate itself from the the giant Google. However, with Google perhaps leaving China in the near future, perhaps Bing can use that to its advantage.

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Epix, the “Hulu of Movies,” Gets Wider Distribution This April

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Epix, the “Hulu of Movies” joint venture between Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM studios, just added a new distribution partner. Mediacom Communications, the seventh largest cable TV provider in the U.S., will join Verizon’s FiOS and Cox Communications as outlets for the premium entertainment venture in April 2010.

Epix offers an interesting twist on the web premium content model, with access to EpixHD.com limited only to customers of its cable television partners. Only those who subscribe to FiOS, Cox, and now Mediacom Communications can access the online version of the Epix TV channel. Epix HD features an on demand library culled from the library of over 15,000 films from its three backing studios.

The strategy behind partnering with Mediacom is to reach the primarily small town and rural community audience that Mediacom serves. It represents yet another stepping stone in the overall march of premium video content to the web.

Do you spend any time on Epix or Epix HD? What do you think of the service?

Tags: cox, Epix, epix hd, Film, fios, Lionsgate, mediacom, MGM, ONLINE VIDEO, Paramount, premium content, tv, web video

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Twitter for Teams: Teambox Launches Web-Based Collaboration Tool

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Since Google Wave's launch, we've seen a slew of real-time, short-form collaboration tools.

From massively multiplayer Q&A app Quora to invite-only, group-scrapbooking tool TwitAlbums to developer-centric, code-coaching resource Squad, the web is rife with sites focused on making groups more communicative and more efficient. Teambox has popped up on our radar as "a Twitter-like project collaboration tool," and it fits right in with this trend.

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This app allows users to share text, tasks and files. Much like topics in Quora, activities in Teambox can be followed by users who need to stay updated, publish updates to their team or view the related stream of information. Projects are invite-only, and users can choose who the collaborators will be and determine permissions for each person.

Communications occur through threaded topics. Participants in a conversation are notified via email when their topic is updated. Tasks are updated in series of comments and act as to-dos that can be assigned, modified and completed.

The app further allows for sharing files of any size, and profile pages allow supervisors or others to see what a particular user has been working on lately.

The Twitter-like UX is familiar and fast, and the interface seems simultaneously lightweight and robust. For project management and team collaboration - including distributed teams - we can see this application going over very well.

Best of all, Teambox is a free and open source project. The app is built using Ruby on Rails, and while the web version of the app is perfect for small- or medium-size teams, larger companies can host Teambox on their own servers - which might also be good news for users and admins concerned with data security.

These distinctions set Teambox apart from Basecamp, a popular product from 37signals that also provides web-based project management tools.

Although the web app is completely free, Teambox also offers paid features, such as server installation for self-hosting, customer support and white-label versions.

What do you think? Is Teambox's Twitter/Basecamp mashup something you could use at your company or for a group side project? Let us know what you think of the application in the comments.

Or, for a bonus round of backstory, check out the ReadWriteWeb Spain interview with founder Pablo Villalba.

Discuss

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Internet Rallies to Help Haiti: Here's What You Can Do Right Now

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haiti_flag_logo.pngAs you probably know, Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake last night. According to the latest estimates, over 100,000 people may have died and large parts of the island's infrastructure have been destroyed.

Here is a short list of things you can do right now to get help to Haiti. Just watch out for unsolicited emails. Quite a few scammers and spammers are trying to profit from this catastrophe and have set up fake donation sites and are running phishing scams.

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Text to Give Money

As Twitter's Evan Williams just noted on the official Twitter blog, giving money to relief organizations has never been easier. All you need is your phone.

  • The American Red Cross allows anyone in the U.S. to text HAITI to 90999 as an easy way to donate $10 to the recovery effort. The money is billed to your mobile phone account. According to the latest tally, the Red Cross has already raised over $800,000 through text messages.
  • Musician Wyclef Jean's Haiti-focused organization, Yele is also accepting text-message donations. To donate $5, text Yele to 501501 or visit the foundation's Web site.

Of course, all the major relief organizations also have websites and will happily accept your donations. Our friends at Mashable have compiled a good list of worthy organizations.

Stay Informed

Here are a few Twitter lists you can follow to stay informed.

If you know of other news sources, local bloggers or organizations, let us know in the comments.

Discuss

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Netflix Video Streaming Available on Nintendo Wii In Just A Few Months [Nintendo Wii]

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Thankfully Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings wasn't just stirring up hype last week when he said the chances of Netflix on Nintendo were "excellent," as the deal's just been inked and will debut in early Spring.

Joining the PS3 and Xbox 360, Netflix will bring its streaming video service to the Wii, offering movies and TV shows to subscribers of the $9/month DVD mail-out service. You'll need to grab a software disc from Netflix though in order to get streaming rights on your Wii, but it's sent to your pad for free so you can't quibble much about that. Worth pointing out though is that the Wii can't give you anything more than 480p video resolution, so don't go thinking this Netflix deal is the best news ever. [NY Times]

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Facebook Blocked at Work? Use Your Email Instead

In our continuing obsession with all things Facebook , we're looking at a new feature that was just announced by the social networking behemoth that will further enmesh the site into our every waking breath: replying to comments through email.
Unless you have changed your settings to stop email notifications , it's likely that you receive an email every time someone comments on your status updates, photos, videos and Wall posts. Before now, the email contained a link that you had to follow, which logged you into Facebook where you could reply. You'll now notice that the email contains a line reading "New Feature: Reply to this email to comment on this link." Sponsor Now, the site has made it possible for you to respond to these comments directly, by hitting the reply button. All you have to do is enter your response and hit send, and Facebook will add your comment to the site.
This is big news for all those Facebook junkies out there who can't get their daytime fix while at work because of a company firewall, not to mention all the students who can't check their Facebook for several hours every day. We'll see where productivity levels go after this. Discuss http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/BrW3SQ4OhGs/facebook_blocked_a...

CBS And The WSJ Team Up With Digg To Get More Free Traffic Lovin’

Well, you can’t fight the power of the pageview. The WSJ and CBS are now teaming up with Digg, by integrating the popular story widget in their websites. According to Digg, after the Telegraph added the Digg popular widget, they watched their traffic from Digg skyrocket from “500k page views to over 5.5 Million page views per month.” In more colloquial English, from zero to hero. Digg goes on to say that Time saw a 164% rise in their Digg related traffic following similar actions. Not as good as the Telegraph, but still nothing to shake a stick at. Let’s be honest: we all loving getting something that we have written on the front page of Digg. Really, we all do. It feels quite good to watch something that you wrote suddenly have 600 people reading it in under a minute, far after the story should have already peaked. Digg is the content creators crack. So make no mistake, this is a play by our two three letter acronymed friends, the WSJ and CBS, to get more Digg love. Plain and simple. Help users? Maybe. Millions of free hits? You bet. Sure, good on Digg, you are working with the most luminous of the old media. But, remember that they love you for your favors, not for your model. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/AwsiIFJJJmw/

Harvard Teams Up With Foursquare For Collegiate Check-Ins

It’s hip to be square. Foursquare , that is. The esteemed academic institution Harvard has partnered with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students with badges and points for exploring the school and surrounding places of interest. The news hails from the Harvard Gazette , which describes a partnership that essentially tacks an official Harvard-specific game with a special collegiate badge on the existing Foursquare functionality and purpose. The primary idea behind the collaboration is to encourage students to connect more with friends and professors through location-based game play, as well as to inspire campus visitors to explore the grounds and uncover tips or share to-dos. If you think about it, tapping into the hyper-local university scene is brilliant. Think about freshman still trying to acclimate to a new campus. They can use the app and game to uncover the university hot spots, find the best social gatherings (maybe even a great kegger), bond with their peers and actually learn a thing or two about social media in real-life context. We think it’s genius. For another look at a university getting creative with Foursquare, check out what UNC Charlotte is playing with. [img credit: Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer] Reviews: Foursquare Tags: foursquare , Harvard , higher education , Mobile 2.0 , social media , social networking http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/nH7CQXtbN04/

Facebook Unites a Former Guantanomo Bay Guard with Prisoner

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Facebook Unites a Former Guantanomo Bay Guard with PrisonerThis is incredible.

Brandon Neely, a former Guantanomo Prison Guard, decided to join Facebook and upon signing up, begun searching for former army acquaintances. He came upon the profile of Shafiq Rasul, a former prisoner and decided to send him a message. To his astonishment, he received a reply.

The initial message spun into a longer conversation, eventually resulting in a face-to-face meeting.

The meeting was arranged by Gavin Lee, a BBC correspondent, who learned about the Facebook messages from Mr. Rasul, who lives in Britain. The BBC paid for Mr. Neely’s flight to the UK in exchange for the opportunity to record their initial meeting between Neely, Rasul and another former prisoner, Ruhal Ahmed.

Neely’s first words, “You look different without a cap.”
The former prisoner’s “You look different without the jump suits.”

Mr. Neely, has since granted confessional-style interviews about the abuses he says he witnessed there. In a message to Mr. Rasul, Mr. Neely apologized for his role in the imprisonment.

Like I said, incredible.

Watch the initial meeting below.

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