Microsoft confirmed today that it has indeed bought Skype from an investor group led by Silver Lake for $8.5bn.

The software giant said the buyout of Luxembourg-based Skype’s technology would “enhance” Microsoft’s current portfolio of real-time communications products and services.

Skype will be slotted into Microsoft as a new business division headed up by the company’s current CEO, Tony Bates. He will report directly to MS boss Steve Ballmer.

Under what is essentially a huge consumer-friendly deal, Skype will provide support for Microsoft devices including Xbox and Kinect and Windows Phone.

Meanwhile, Skype’s 170 million users will be hooked up to Microsoft’s Lync, Outlook and Xbox Live products, as well as other communities, said the software vendor.

It added that Microsoft would “continue to invest in and support Skype clients in Non-Microsoft platforms.” In other words, Mac and Linux versions of the VoIP service will still be developed by the team, but presumably the main focus will be on Windows support from here on in.

“Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Ballmer.

“Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world.” ®

Souce

Groupon did NOT sell. Even if it was 6 BILLION dollars.

Google said, oh well so much for the easy way to get into this market space.

The Hard way, sort of, is to build and market their own deals website/network.

Enter Google OFFERS….surely to be tied into their maps and places.

Here come the competition Groupon and Living Social.

Read up on what is coming to an internet connection near you.

CLICK HERE

As you may already know, AdSense is comprised of several products. The most popular are AdSense for content, which allows publishers to generate revenue from ads placed alongside web content, and AdSense for search, which allows publishers to place a custom Google search engine on their site and generate revenue from ads shown next to search results. Since AdSense for content and AdSense for search offer publishers different services, the revenue shared with publishers differs for each of these products.

AdSense for content publishers, who make up the vast majority of our AdSense publishers, earn a 68% revenue share worldwide. This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites. The remaining portion that we keep reflects Google’s costs for our continued investment in AdSense — including the development of new technologies, products and features that help maximize the earnings you generate from these ads. It also reflects the costs we incur in building products and features that enable our AdWords advertisers to serve ads on our AdSense partner sites. Since launching AdSense for content in 2003, this revenue share has never changed.

Read the rest here: Click

Yahoo! continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services, in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. After conducting an extensive review of the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, we have decided to close the program effective April 30, 2010. We expect to deliver final publisher payments for the month ending April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those mailed by January 31, 2011.

Because our content will no longer be delivered to your ad unit spaces after April 30, 2010, we recommend removing all YPN ad code from your pages by that date.

For the opportunity to continue earning revenue, we suggest using Chitika, a leading advertising network that syndicates Yahoo! Content Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform. Click Here for more information.

We thank you for your participation in the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta. If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please contact our Support Team at (866) 785-2636, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Sincerely,

Your Partners at Yahoo!

He did so on the huffington post’s website.

He was suing over having is Adsense account closed.

Anyone who has an adsense account has the dread of one day not being able to login in and see the daily erning from click-throughs and when that happens Google often doesn’t give much insight to why the account was closed. Mr. Greenspan did not set out on his quest to sue Google once his account was closed, but only to find out why.
A resonably request.
He even sited Habeas corpus, but Google said that did not apply and he signed their Terms of Service (TOS) that allows Google to terminate for any reason.

Some of the key information that he brought to light in his efforts were:

• Knowing only that I was somehow posing "a significant risk" to advertisers, I e-mailed Google to ask about exactly what had happened.
• Being unable to speak with anybody about why he was a risk. He did a fair amount of leg work in his accounting of the whole process.
• Raised "Adsense for domains" as something he could have used, IF it existed just 2 days prior to his account termination.
• Sedo : where he could park his domain and still get Google Ads on his website, but at only a fraction of what Google was paying directly
• Once in court the paralegal sited, "Google can terminate your account for any reason,"  which got Aron’s reply of ,"Not any reason," I said. "Not because I have blue eyes. Or brown eyes." (vaild point)

and lastly I’ll post his summation and encourge everyone who has account that may one day be, or had already been subject to the an unjust and unexplained Adsense closure to heed:

"But it’s not fair!" Google’s paralegal protested. "What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?"

It’s a valid question. Yet until Google changes its policies to become more transparent, which might also reassure skeptics that AdWords and AdSense, which have oddly limited reporting capabilities, aren’t just two sides of the same ponzi scheme (for why else would one want to terminate legitimate accounts with high monthly liabilities when they’re supposed to be making money for Google on each click?)–I will give this answer:

Maybe everyone whose account was canceled, should.

Thank you Aaron Greenspan. You have opened the door to what should not be so hard to force open.
Thank you Arr

Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.

What an outrage.

Read the full story Here

Or you can see there is a whole page dedicated to
What is a Widget on the site

A widget is an interactive application that can be installed on web pages, desktop platforms, and mobile devices that accept this type of content. Technically speaking, a web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any HTML-based web page by an end user. Most widgets have a media-rich graphical interface that becomes visible once the code is successfully installed on a web page.

Companies and advertisers create widgets as a marketing vehicle in order to distribute their content to the places that users spend a majority of their time online. Because widgets can be easily grabbed and shared, they have the potential to go viral. People recognize the utility and fun of widgets, and actively endorse them by installing them on profile pages as a way to express themselves to the world. Users install widgets on their pages because they find the content useful, entertaining or cool.

Widgets typically fall into two categories: Social or Utility. Social widgets, typically placed on social networks, blogs and personal pages possess a “one-to-many” opportunity for exposure while Utility widgets are typically utilitarian in function and provide users with features like news, weather, calendars, and notepads.

I admit I have followed the whole life of this prime quality name, but it looks like Venture partnership.

Googles full article

More from their Webmaster Central Blog – Here

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Search Engine Land has a very nice write up on the new technology of SE

Their’s is here

And on the topic of video might as well toss in the Official Google YouTube Channel – Here

“We are pleased to introduce Google Affiliate Network . Effective Monday, June 30, 2008, DoubleClick Performics Affiliate will operate as Google Affiliate Network. The integration with Google’s brand is a reflection of efforts to quickly assimilate our business and teams, as well as reinforce Google’s commitment to the Affiliate channel. Together with our new colleagues at Google we are creating new opportunities for monetization, expansion and innovation in Affiliate Marketing.
… Read the rest ->>>