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INTERNET SPACE
Google goes social with Facebook rival
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) June 28, 2011

News Corp. on verge of Myspace sale: WSJ
Washington (AFP) June 28, 2011 - News Corp. is on the verge of selling Myspace and a deal could include laying off more than half of the troubled social network's staff, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The newspaper, citing a "person familiar with the matter," said there were two leading bidders for Myspace -- the digital ad-targeting firm Specific Media and private equity firm Golden Gate Capital.

The News Corp.-owned Journal said a deal could be announced as early as Wednesday, and would include shedding more than half of Myspace's staff of about 500 people.

The newspaper said the buyer would pay significantly less than the $100 million News Corp. had hoped and the Rupert Murdoch-owned company would retain a small stake in Myspace.

Technology blog All Things Digital, owned by News Corp., said the price for Myspace was in the $20 million to $30 million range.

News Corp. paid $580 million for Myspace in 2005. It was the leading social network at the time but has since been eclipsed by Facebook.

The Journal said Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital were the leading bidders but several otherrs remain in the mix, including two groups involving Myspace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson.

DeWolfe has been in talks to acquire Myspace as part of a group backed by Austin Ventures, the newspaper said, while Anderson is part of a group backed by Criterion Capital Partners.

News Corp. chief operating officer Chase Carey put Myspace on notice in November, saying the losses at the social network were "unsustainable" and the company revealed in January that it was for sale.

News Corp. does not break out results for Myspace in its earnings but the "other" segment, which includes the social network, reported a second quarter operating loss of $156 million, $31 million wider than a year ago.

Google, the king of Internet search but a bust on the social front, launched its rival to Facebook on Tuesday, a social networking service called Google+.

"Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it," Google's senior vice president for engineering Vic Gundotra said in a blog post about the long-awaited social networking initiative from the Internet giant.

Unveiling Google+, Gundotra stressed the ability it gives users to separate online friends and family into different "Circles," or networks, and to share information only with members of a particular circle.

"We'd like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software," he said. "We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships and your interests."

One of the criticisms of Facebook is that updates are shared with all of one's friends unless a user has gone through a relatively complicated process to create separate Facebook Groups.

"Not all relationships are created equal," Gundotra said. "So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss.

"The problem is that today's online services turn friendship into fast food -- wrapping everyone in 'friend' paper -- and sharing really suffers," he said.

Google+, located at plus.google.com, is currently being tested by a small number of people or is available by invitation only.

But Google said in a message on the site that it "won't be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone."

Google unveiled several new tools integrated into Google+, including "Hangouts," which allows for video chatting among friends, "Mobile" for location-sharing and "Huddle" for group text messaging.

Photos and video can be uploaded and shared among Circles using a feature known as "Instant Upload," while an online sharing engine called "Sparks" delivers content from the Web into a user's feed.

Google dominates Internet search but the Mountain View, California, company has failed to make inroads on the social networking front, where Facebook has accumulated nearly 700 million users and Twitter around 200 million.

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, speaking at the AllThingsD technology conference last month, took responsibility for the company missing the wave when it came to making services social, saying "I screwed up."

Google's last major foray into social networking -- Google Buzz, launched in February 2010 -- spawned a slew of privacy complaints and led to a slap on the wrist from the US Federal Trade Commission.

Under a settlement between the US regulator and Google announced in March, Google is required to implement a comprehensive privacy program and will be subject to independent privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years.

Google+ makes its debut as Google and Facebook wage a fierce battle over online advertising dollars and how people navigate the Internet.

Google does not send people to Facebook and vice versa, and both companies are seeking to become the chief gateway to the Internet.

In May, Facebook was left red-faced after acknowledging it had hired a prominent public relations firm to draw attention to privacy practices at Google.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.com, said in a blog post it was "anyone's guess" as to whether Google+ would be successful.

"If you're happy using Facebook, there seems relatively little to make you want to switch over to Google Plus, at the moment," said Sullivan, who received an early glimpse of the new service from Google.

"Perhaps if there are people who want a Facebook alternative, Google's now got a core to build on for them."




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Twitter co-founders starting new venture
Washington (AFP) June 28, 2011 - Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced Tuesday he was scaling back his involvement in the micro-blogging company to concentrate on a new venture.

The 37-year-old said in a post on his personal blog that he was relaunching The Obvious Corporation, the company that spawned Twitter, with fellow Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and a former Google colleague, Jason Goldman.

"Our plan is to develop new projects and work on solving big problems aligned along a simple mission statement: The Obvious Corporation develops systems that help people work together to improve the world," Stone said.

Williams, who stepped down as Twitter's chief executive last year, already announced in March that he was reducing his role at Twitter. He remains on Twitter's board of directors but is not involved in day-to-day affairs.

Stone, who founded Twitter in 2006 with Williams and Jack Dorsey, said he will "continue to work with (Twitter) for many years to come."

But, he added, "I've decided that the most effective use of my time is to get out of the way until I'm called upon to be of some specific use.

"I'll still commit part of my time to hands on help with Twitter wherever and whenever I can be of assistance," Stone continued.

In a message on The Obvious Corporation's website, Stone, Williams and Goldman said they were not ready to divulge details about their upcoming projects.

"We're are not ready to discuss specifics except to say that our thesis is building systems that help people work together to improve their lives and the world," they said.

They also said they were looking for engineers, designers and a "few multi-talented business people."

Twitter is currently led by Dick Costolo, who replaced Williams as chief executive in October of last year, and Dorsey, who returned to the company in March as executive chairman to head its product team.





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Google giving details of requests to remove content
Washington (AFP) June 27, 2011
Google on Monday began detailing the reasons behind government requests it receives to remove content from its services and whether or not it has complied. The move was one of several changes made to the Google Transparency Report, an online tool that also shows where the Internet search giant's services and products are being blocked around the world. "We've changed the format so you ca ... read more


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