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Asia and Africa Top Mobile Web Usage

Highest share of mobile web usage isn't in the most developed nations, but rather in the developing nations of the world, based on StatCounter's October 2010 data. "The reason these countries have such high mobile web usage compared to desktop web usage (for lack of a better name) is very much a result of economics," says RoyalPingdom. "A relatively cheap mobile phone (most often from Nokia, as we have seen) will then be a much more realistic option, and it therefore becomes the way to reach the Web for many. " more

Report on Governments Involved in Edited DNS Responses

Earl Zmijewski reporting in Renesys Blog: "There's been sudden interest recently in a Chinese route hijacking incident that occurred way back in April, brought about by a new report to the US Congress that highlighted the event. A second Chinese event, also in the report, has received almost no attention despite being much more interesting (technically, anyway). A Chinese DNS censorship incident occurred just one month earlier, in March..." more

Mandatory Provision of Abuse Contact Information in WHOIS

An industry professional at Abusix is the backbone behind a proposal to improve and create better mitigation of abuse across different global internet networks. Basically, this introduces a mandatory "abuse contact" field for objects in global Whois databases. This provides a more efficient way for abuse reports to reach the correct network contact. Personally - as a Postmaster for a leading, white-label ISP, I applaud this with great happiness for multiple reasons. I also feel people who handle abuse desks, anti-abuse roles, etc. should closely follow this. more

Cisco Collaboration Summit - Where Unified Communications Could Be Going

This year's Cisco Collaboration Summit was a step up from last year, and I say that for good reason. Last year's event was good -- all of Cisco's events are good -- but the venue was too small and it took away from the messaging. For 2010, Cisco went out of town to the classy and classic Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. They don't build them like this anymore, and to me, this setting did far more justice for what Cisco has to say about collaboration. more

Facebook’s New Messaging Platform

On Monday, Facebook announced that they were introducing a new messaging platform. Facebook is careful to point out that this is not a replacement for email; it is not email, so they claim. So what is it? This messaging platform is basically a way to talk to people outside of Facebook from Facebook... Essentially, independent of the platform, you can still use the feature. It's kind of like everything Java promised in the 1990's -- it runs on Windows, the Mac or Unix. more

Project Explosion in the Email Industry Today…

Funny as it may seem, today there's big news in the email industry -- 2 large internet bodies, 2 projects... Projects Phoenix and Titan, by AOL and Facebook respectively. What are key things to note about each project? Let's look at each in brief detail... more

4% of Americans Online Use Location-Based Services, According to Pew Survey

In its first report on the use of "geosocial" or location-based services, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life project finds that 4% of online adults use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. On any given day, 1% of internet users are using these services. more

Google Internet Traffic Continues to Soar

Craig Labovitz reporting today on Arbor Networks blog: "In their earnings call last week, Google announced a record 2010 third-quarter revenue of $7.29 billion (up 23% from last year). The market rejoiced and Google shares shot past $615 giving the company a market cap of more than $195 billion. This month, Google broke an equally impressive Internet traffic record -- gaining more than 1% of all Internet traffic share since January. If Google were an ISP, as of this month it would rank as the second largest carrier on the planet..." more

A Look at Internet’s Growth in the Past Decade

Royal Pingdom has a post on the Growth of the Internet in the past decade. From the post: "There were only 361 million Internet users in 2000, in the entire world. For perspective, that's barely two-thirds of the size of Facebook today. The chart really says it all. There are more than five times as many Internet users now as there were in 2000. And as has been noted elsewhere, the number of Internet users in the world is now close to passing two billion and may do so before the end of this year." more

Google’s Spending Spree: 2.4 Million Servers, and Counting

Google just published its Q3 financial results. So, what is Google spending on IT, and how much servers would that buy? This is one of their best kept secrets. In this post I give ballpark estimates based on back-of-the-envelop calculations, similar to the 'guestimates' I made 5 years ago. more

URL Shorteners, Domain Hacks and Quasi-gTLDs: What are ccTLDs Really About?

The Twitterverse is awash with catchy URL shortening services, which allow what would otherwise be long URLs to fit within the strict character limit of individual Tweets. Before the Twitter phenomenon really took hold, tinyurl.com was one of the more popular services; now much shorter options are available, using various Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) which have the significant advantage of being only two characters after the last dot. more

Google Instant - Great for Top Internet Brands

In late September Google introduced Google Instant, an auto-complete algorithm that assists users in searching with greater speed. Google's new service predicts search queries in real time, can catch a mistake if the user mistyped and guides users to previously performed searches. This new service greatly benefits top brands on the Internet and those that have purchased key words and ad words; while it might not be as beneficial for companies with low website traffic or those that are not well known. more

Google Cracks Down on Illegal Online Pharmacies

Announced on the Google Blog last week, the search engine giant has filed a federal lawsuit against a group of rogue pharmacies in an effort to stop them from advertising on its search engine and websites. Michael Zwibelman, the company's litigation counsel, notes that the advertisers have deliberately "violated policies and circumvented technological measures" by using Adwords to promote pharmacy and prescription-drug operations without verification from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. more

Microsoft Releases a Cybersecurity eBook, Free Download

Micorsoft has released a 253 page cybersecurity ebook primarily intended for teens but also serves as a useful resource for adults interested in overall understanding of various Internet security topics. more

The Web is Dead: What This Means to ICANN, New gTLD Program and the Domain Industry

While we are spending years figuring out how to create the perfect generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch and guidebook, the Internet is moving along at an extraordinary pace without any care about ICANN policy-making. The fact of the matter is ICANN is a ghost to the ordinary person or Internet company. You can not imagine how many times I had to explain what ICANN is, what ICANN does and why ICANN is important. more

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