EBay bids for durability in changing digital world


By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO - While Yahoo staves off a takeover bid from Microsoft - and Microsoft braces for life after Bill Gates - another high-tech pioneer is at a digital crossroads.

As eBay (EBAY) readies for the post-Meg-Whitman era, and new CEO John Donahoe takes over Monday, it faces fierce challenges in a Web 2.0 era defined by armies of agile competitors.

Running eBay could be a daunting task. The former dot-com darling has lost some of its luster and is reinventing itself to reverse years of slowing growth in its auction marketplace, where millions trade online selling to the highest bidder or at a fixed price.

Some sellers are drifting away to take advantage of more options these days at online stops such as Amazon (AMZN) and specialty stores, or to protest another fee increase at eBay.

Lynette Setzkorn reluctantly hopes to be "eBay-free" by June. The 50-year-old Tulsa resident sold $30,000 worth of antique furniture in January, but the latest increase was the "final straw," she says. Setzkorn is shifting sales to antiques dealer Ruby Lane and Amazon.

The wrenching changes at eBay underscore the challenges it and other mature Internet companies face as they enter the second decade of the dot-com era, analysts say. Like its Silicon Valley neighbor, Yahoo, and Microsoft, eBay is confronted by the growing shadow of Google as well as the looming presence of longtime rival Amazon and other e-commerce sites.

"The issue for most of these Web 2.0 businesses is, what are they going to do for Web 3.0?" says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. "Google's model is robust and extensible. If you're an auction site, what do you do for the next act?"

So far, the personable Donahoe has dived into his new assignment.

Donahoe has vowed to put greater emphasis on fixed-priced listings - items sold through its eBay's Buy It Nowservice - a seismic shift for eBay buyers that would approximate their experience on Amazon and elsewhere.

If anything, the 47-year-old Donahoe is a pragmatist. Fixed pricing (Buy It Now on the eBay site) accounts for 40% of revenue at eBay Marketplaces, its largest division. Most of the rest is from auction sales, for which eBay is better known.

To offset slackening growth in Marketplaces, eBay has diversified into online ticketing, payment services for merchants, classified listings and advertising. Donahoe and other eBay executives declined to be interviewed before he assumes the CEO job this week. But he has previously said he envisions a way of combining fixed-price listings and auctions, so both results would be displayed on eBay's main website. Eventually, shoppers could parse a search for new or used iPods by model and price, he has said.

In a nod to the growing sway of Google, (GOOG) eBay is developing a comprehensive search engine to evaluate customer feedback, shipping costs, PayPal data and other factors to present the best deals to shoppers. Google has become a factor because consumers increasingly use its search to find inexpensive deals, and Amazon and other eBay rivals have paid for prominent listings as sponsored links.

"My commitment is to build from (eBay's) strengths and make the changes necessary in this competitive environment," Donahoe, a former Bain & Co. consultant, said in a conference call in January. "EBay's best days are ahead."

Yet, three years ago, eBay's revenue and profits were growing at a rate of more than 30% year-over-year. Today, it is in the midteens, says Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Global Crown Capital. Revenue in the USA has declined in five of the last six quarters, he says.

Meanwhile, changes Donahoe made to the fees eBay charges its sellers prompted the company to issue lower earnings guidance for its current first fiscal quarter and year ahead. It said 2008 revenue would improve up to 14%, to $8.75 billion - shy of the 17% expected by financial analysts. EBay shares, which touched $40 in October, have tumbled to $30.22. On March 20, eBay said it is cutting 125 jobs in North America and Europe, less than 1% of its 15,500-person workforce.

A time of transition

Donahoe is filling the prodigious shoes of Whitman, 51, one of the most successful female CEOs in the world. Whitman took over eBay before it went public in 1998, when the young company had a rapidly growing user base and powerful network. Her biggest concern then was to manage growth, says Rodrigo Sales, co-founder and CEO of Vendio Services, which provides technology services to online auctioneers.

Donahoe inherits a mature company facing stiffening competition from online auction houses abroad and Amazon, among others, at home.


Donna Klein, 51, of Birmingham, Mich., symbolizes the shifting buying habits of some eBay patrons. Though she "loves eBay," Klein buys books and music CDs on Amazon, where buyers flock to take advantage of inexpensive, fixed prices for items such as CDs and video games. Previously, consumers would look for deals in eBay auctions.


Analysts are convinced the personable Donahoe is up to the challenge.


"He is tremendously open and receptive to Wall Street, shareholders and the eBay community," says Robert Peck, an analyst at Bear Stearns. "His ability to change things quickly, as he did with pricing, bodes well for the company."


For the past three years, he was president of eBay Marketplaces, which accounts for about 70% of eBay's total revenue. During his tenure, Donahoe was well-regarded by sellers for his hands-on management style and accessibility.


Now, he may have to apply his persuasive skills to appease some of eBay's 82 million sellers, who are renowned for their loyalty and for their withering criticism of the online auctioneer.


Since Donahoe's announcement as new CEO in January, he has made seismic changes to the fees eBay charges, and to its feedback system. The cost to list items will be cut 25% to 50% to encourage more listings, but the commission eBay charges for completed sales increased more than 25% for many, favoring sellers of commodity items such as CDs and video games over sellers of unique items. He also tweaked eBay's feedback system to encourage buyers to return to the site. A seller's commission fee for a $20 sale is now about $3.14, compared with about $2 for the same sale a few months ago, says Gary Richardson, 42, of Batesville, Ark., who sells goggles, eyeglasses and sunglasses on eBay.


'Fees are killing me'


The adjustments raised the ire of some eBay sellers, who mounted a week-long boycott in February to "let eBay executives know that we were not happy about the changes they are implementing," says organizer Valerie Lennertof Anaheim, Calif.


"Fees are killing me," says Keith Yockey,57, of Landrum, S.C. He sells $3,000 worth of dog whistles a month on eBay, where he has been a seller since 2004. Since he joined Amazon in July, he averages $4,500 a month. "EBay is my home, and I hate to see it go away," Yockey says. "But if they continue to drive sellers away, so be it."


"I'm paying more to (do business with) eBay, but I have the same size of audience," says Laura Seleman, who averages jewelry sales of $3,000 a month on eBay. The Cleveland resident says higher fees forced her to start selling on her own website, at online auctioneer eBid and at Amazon.


"Amazon represents a huge challenge for eBay," because it is difficult for eBay to take on Amazon in the online retail business, says Kartik Hosanagar, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who studies Internet commerce.


Nonetheless, he says, "This is eBay's battle to lose."


EBay remains the dominant online auction site - in large part because of booming sales at its PayPal division, says Patti Freeman Evans, senior retail analyst at JupiterResearch.


It commands a dominant slice of the $34 billion online auction market, and its market value is $40.1 billion. By eBay's own estimates, it accounts for 14% of global e-commerce revenue and is the primary source of income for a staggering 1.3 million people.


PayPal's runaway success - it racked up $1.9 billion in 2007 revenue, up 40% from 2006 - has compensated for any erosion in eBay's core business, Evans says.


Even eBay's online telephone service, Skype - which came at the steep price of $2.6 billion in late 2005 - is valuable because it offers eBay members the ability to communicate directly, Evans says.


Though eBay reported a third-quarter loss because of a $1.39 billion charge related to its acquisition of Skype, the division has experienced substantial growth. It reported $382 million in 2007 revenue, more than double from 2006.


In its recently completed fourth quarter, eBay said profit jumped 42% to $611 million, or 45 cents a share, from the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue increased 27% to $2.18 billion, eclipsing the $2.14 billion forecast by Wall Street.


There are trouble spots, to be sure. Not only is eBay's core business cooling off, but it could do better in Asia. It has yet to fully catch on in China despite an investment of about $200 million, says Scott Devitt, managing director of Internet consumer services at investment firm Stifel Nicolaus.


Donahoe must also remake eBay's management ranks. He's done so by taking corporate stars from across the company to invigorate eBay - most notably the move of eBay Marketplaces President Rajiv Dutta, who previously ran PayPal and Skype, back to the parent company.


And Donahoe has assiduously picked the brain of customers to see what they want. Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor,a maker of automation software for eBay sellers, recounts how Donahoe sought him out at a Starbucks in Boston last year and peppered him with questions on how eBay could improve the user experience. Wingo suggested lower listing fees, better search and a crackdown on fraud. "So far, they've done a good job," he says.


Despite several lingering obstacles, analysts such as Pyykkonen see no end to eBay's momentum as it begins the Donahoe Era. There are more challengers to the throne, but this is one tech titan that rolls along, he says.


"Lots of companies would love to be in eBay's position," Pyykkonen says. "But a constantly evolving market makes it a little scary for everyone."

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    Adobe joins Linux Foundation, develops AIR for Linux


    Peter Sayer


    San Francisco - Adobe Systems released an early alpha version of its rich Internet application platform AIR for Linux on Monday, and announced that it has joined the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes and standardizes Linux.

    AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) allows Internet-enabled applications to run on Windows and Mac OS X desktops. AIR applications use the same technologies as Web applications built to run inside a browser, including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and Flash, Adobe's own multimedia programming language.

    [ Learnhow Adobe AIR compares to other rich-media and Web apps tools. ]

    The AIR runtime framework is already available for Windows and Mac OS X: Adobe's goal is to allow such applications to run on Linux too, although some applications may not work with the version released Monday.

    Programmers can use Adobe's Flex software development tools to build applications for AIR. The company also released Adobe Flex Builder Linux alpha 3 on Monday, allowing developers to build Flex applications using Linux.

    As a member of the Linux Foundation, Adobe will join companies including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Google, and Nokia. The Foundation formed last year from the merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group.

    Although the Linux Foundation hailed Adobe's arrival as "a natural extension of its commitment to open standards and open source," that commitment stops short of publishing source code for the Linux version of AIR. Adobe's end-user license for the code explicitly forbids any attempt to "reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the software."

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      Rumors fly as Zimbabwe bloggers wait impatiently


      By Marius Bosch


      JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -
      Bloggers mixed wild rumors with
      gallows humor on Monday as Zimbabweans waited on tenterhooks
      for the result of the most crucial election since independence.


      The opposition MDC and ruling ZANU-PF were running
      neck-and-neck in first parliamentary results issued by the
      electoral commission, 36 hours after polls closed.


      Many bloggers shared opposition suspicions that the delay
      meant President Robert Mugabe was trying to rig the result to
      extend his 28 years in power.


      Even in cyberspace the tension of waiting for the results
      began to tell.


      "It's late and if I watch (MDC secretary general) Tendai
      Biti making the same comments on the same report they have been
      running since this morning I am going to do grievous bodily
      harm to the next person who walks through the door," one
      blogger wrote on thisiszimbabwe
      http://www.sokwanele/thisiszimbabwe/


      Writing on Sunday, poet Samm Farai Monro, better known as
      Comrade Fatso, told on his blog http://comradefatso.vox/ of
      wild rumors flying around the capital Harare.


      "The streets are waiting. We woke today to rumors of Mugabe
      fleeing to Malaysia and news of the MDC press conference. We
      carried our bababarazi'd (hungover) selves to the conference
      after a night of ragga at downtown Harare's Tube Nightclub.
      According to the MDC's counting process they are way ahead in
      the polls. Victory is on people's lips. But so is rigging."


      CRUMBLING ECONOMY

      Zimbabwe's crumbling economy was also widely discussed.
      Clark described searching for an Easter egg in Harare, where
      most shop shelves are bare. Official inflation is more than
      100,000 percent and the currency is virtually worthless.


      Many blogger comments on the Botswana-based news website
      http://zimbabwemetro related to fears that the elections
      may be rigged.


      "I want to say to Mr Mugabe, this is your perfect time to
      say goodbye," said comments by "Snoopy," a Zimbabwean living in
      Australia.


      "You can leave with a small amount of dignity if you leave
      now rather than no dignity at all in the next few weeks when
      there will be blood on the streets if you steal this election
      and again tell the people you do not care ... Go now Bob."


      (Editing by Barry Moody)

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        Adobe joins Linux Foundation, Previews Air for Linux


        Peter Sayer, IDG News Service

        Adobe Systems released an early alpha version of its rich Internet application platform AIR for Linux on Monday, and announced that it has joined the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes and standardizes Linux.

        Air allows Internet-enabled applications to run on Windows and Mac OS X desktops. Air applications use the same technologies as Web applications built to run inside a browser, including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Flash, Adobe's own multimedia programming language.

        The Air runtime framework is already available for Windows and Mac OS X: Adobe's goal is to allow such applications to run on Linux too, although some applications may not work with the version released Monday.

        Programmers can use Adobe's Flex software development tools to build applications for Air. The company also released Adobe Flex Builder Linux alpha 3 on Monday, allowing developers to build Flex applications using Linux.

        As a member of the Linux Foundation, Adobe will join companies including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Google and Nokia. The Foundation formed last year from the merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group.

        Although the Linux Foundation hailed Adobe's arrival as "a natural extension of its commitment to open standards and open source," that commitment stops short of publishing source code for the Linux version of Air. Adobe's end-user license for the code explicitly forbids any attempt to "reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the software."

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          Zoho Challenges Business App Industry Heavyweights


          Peter Piazza, newsfactor

          Web 2.0 company Zoho has announced the launch of the latest product in its suite of online freeware and payware applications. Zoho Invoice gives users the ability to create everything from estimates to invoices in multiple currencies. Industry insiders say the company is working hard to build enough "critical mass" for it to challenge the industry's heavyweights.


          The application joins other members of the Zoho Suite of products that target businesses (including applications for meetings, planning, HR and database creation). It's integrated into Zoho Projects, a project-management application, according to Raju Vegesna, Zoho's evangelist.


          "If you are working on a project, you can invoice your client directly from Zoho Invoice by creating an invoice from Zoho Projects. It automatically imports the time spent on the projects from Zoho Projects," Vegesna said. In the future, the application will be integrated with the CRM and other company applications.


          Zoho Invoice is integrated with PayPal, so invoices can be generated and sent to customers, who can then make payments directly through PayPal. The company plans on adding more payment gateways. The application is free for sending up to five invoices per month; four monthly subscription versions range from $5 to $35 and allow from 25 to 1,500 invoices to be sent each month.


          "We primarily expect individual professionals and SMBs [small to midsize businesses] to use this app," Vegesna said. "There are many small and micro businesses who need a simple way of generating invoices and managing them. That is the target market for Zoho Invoice."


          Critical Mass


          The invoicing application joins more than a dozen other Zoho productivity and business tools that are available for free or for low rates. Rob Bois, research director at AMR Research, thinks the company is thinking of the long term. "It's all about trying to get critical mass early on," Bois told us. "If you look at a lot of early-stage companies, Google wasn't raking in money hand over fist when it first started. It was just this search engine that's turned into a giant ad-revenue business."


          While it's easy to compare Zoho to Google, given that they both offer a large set of online productivity tools, Bois said the company is actually competing with another giant. "In reality, it's an affront to the Microsoft model. Microsoft has all those productivity tools, and then they have this whole Dynamics business unit, and a product line under the Live moniker which is actually CRM, SharePoint, collaborative tools targeted at very small businesses, and it's all offered online as a service."


          SaaS Challenges


          AMR has researched software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications like Zoho's, and Bois said that businesses put a high value on it. He noted, though, that it remains very new ground for many businesses. "It's a real paradigm shift," he said. "There's still not a lot of clear-cut ownership for where these tools live. Does IT own this and roll it out and deploy it? That's certainly not the traditional consumer-based model, which is much more of an open-market structure where people go out and find stuff that helps them do their job most effectively."


          One advantage of Zoho is that is remarkably user friendly. Bois said that ease of use is no longer simply an option in applications, given that a generation of software users has grown up with easy-to-use interfaces on the consumer Web.


          "Now [users are] coming into the corporate world and finding all these enterprise applications where they have to go to a week-long training course to be even quasi-proficient, and they feel like they're turning back the clock 20 years. It's a very frustrating experience, and I think that it's incumbent for the software vendors that are selling to businesses to make business tools just as intuitive and easy to use as the consumer tools."

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            Online help-wanted ads down in March


            NEW YORK (Reuters) -
            Help-wanted postings on major
            U.S.-based Internet job boards were down 0.6 percent in March
            from a year ago, the measure's first-ever decline on a
            year-over-year basis, a private research group said on Monday.


            The Conference Board said its measure of the total number
            of unduplicated online jobs fell to 3.73 million in March from
            about 3.75 million a year ago, and also down from 3.93 million
            in February 2008. The March figures reflect the sum of the
            number of ads from mid-February to mid-March.


            "The softening in advertised vacancies evident over the
            last few months spread to more states in March and, for the
            first time, annual growth turned negative for the nation as a
            whole," said Gad Levanon, a Conference Board economist.


            The Conference Board said jobs advertised online declined
            in all of the nine U.S. Census regions in March.


            Adjusting for the size of the state civilian labor force,
            Alaska led U.S. states in offerings with 4.65 online job ads
            per 100 people, followed by Nevada with 4.38 and Delaware with
            4.26.


            The ADP National Employment Report, due on Wednesday, is
            expected to show 48,000 jobs were lost in the U.S. private
            sector in March, following a 23,000 reduction in February,
            according to a Reuters survey.


            (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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              Mobile broadband subscribers increase by 850 percent


              Mikael Ricknäs


              San Francisco - The worldwide number of mobile broadband subscribers using HSPA has increased by 850 percent over the past year, according to the GSM Association. But carriers are also running the risk of becoming a victim of their own success.

              HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) is a member of the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) family, and currently offers speeds ranging from 1.8Mbps to 7.2Mbps.

              There are now more than 32 million connections worldwide, compared to 3 million a year ago.

              "Operators have found a brand new market, connecting laptops to the Internet," said Mark Newman, chief research officer at Informa Telecoms and Media.

              The level of interest has even taken operators by surprise.

              "The growth has been bigger than we could ever have dreamed of," said Nicholas Högberg, chief commercial officer at Swedish mobile operator 3.

              There are several reasons for mobile broadband's increased popularity. Everything from lower pricing, to improved ease of use and the convenience of being able to surf the Internet almost everywhere has played a role, according Newman and Högberg.

              As the subscriber numbers increase, operators will have to upgrade networks, or users will see performance decrease and start to complain.

              "So far, we have only seen a few isolated incidents. But we expect to see more of that this year," said Newman.

              Carriers aren't turning a blind eye. But the question is whether they can upgrade networks before users start experiencing problems, he said.

              "Of course it's a challenge, but my CTO says we have everything under control, and we have already handled the first wave," Högberg said.

              Capacity demand will also force carriers to look at other ways of building mobile networks. It will also drive the demand for so-called femtocells, small base stations for the home that offload mobile network traffic by sending data via a fixed broadband connection.

              "Sending data via base stations is a poor way of using capacity, if a majority of users are sitting at home," said Newman.

              The installed base of HSPA subscribers isn't the only area of growth. The number of networks and devices has also exploded.

              The number of devices has increased by more than 265 percent since January last year, according to the GSM Association.

              Users can choose from about 467 USB (Universal Serial Bus) modems, mobile handsets, notebook PCs, data cards, and wireless routers, compared to 128 devices in January last year.

              The number of networks currently supporting mobile broadband using HSPA is 166, in 73 countries. In May last year the number of networks was 73, according to the GSM Association.


              The growth on all fronts is creating a virtuous circle in which mobile broadband is achieving greater economies of scale, driving down the cost of devices and attracting even more users, said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association.


              The announcement's timing isn't a coincidence; this week the mobile industry gathers in Las Vegas for CTIA Wireless 2008.


              WiMax and LTE (Long Term Evolution) will engross everyone at the show, said Dan Warren, the GSM Association's director of technology, and the group wants to underline the success of HSPA.

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                Yahoo's Shine Focuses on Female Decision-Makers


                Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor

                Yahoo on Monday launched a Web site focused on providing information relevant to women. Dubbed Shine, the site aims to create a single destination for the approximately 40 million women between the ages of 25 and 54 who already come to Yahoo each month.


                Shine offers nine categories ranging from fashion and beauty to parenting. The site will feature content from popular lifestyles publishers, including Cond� Nast Publications and Hearst. A new editorial team will develop original stories on a daily basis, and handpick the best user-blog posts to feature prominently on the site.


                "We're executing on Yahoo's starting-point strategy by ensuring that women who start their day with Yahoo are offered a more relevant experience," said Scott Moore, senior vice president and head of Yahoo Media. "Yahoo Shine adds an important piece to our media portfolio, which already includes sites that are number one in the news, sports, finance and entertainment categories."


                The Female-Oriented Content Mix


                Yahoo said the new site will help create a better experience for women on Yahoo, while providing advertisers a single lifestyles destination to reach this coveted demographic. Shine's nine categories are: fashion and beauty, parenting, food, at home, healthy living, entertainment and culture, work and money, astrology, and love and relationships.


                Shine leverages the resources of several existing Yahoo sites, including Yahoo Food and Yahoo Astrology, and will incorporate content from Yahoo Health. Bringing these resources together is an example of Yahoo Media's focus on building larger category sites for mass audiences, rather than focusing on niche topics and smaller audiences, the company said.


                Lifestyles publishing veteran Brandon Holley is Shine's editor in chief, overseeing a team of editors from print and online lifestyles outlets, including Lucky magazine, The Wall Street Journal's Career Journal, and BluePrint magazine. Editors will program content daily by featuring partner content, stories from a women's blog network, and developing original stories.


                Advertisers Targeting Females


                The female age 25-54 audience, which Yahoo has designated as "Chief Household Officers," is a highly sought-after demographic for advertisers. It is made up of heavy Internet users who are frequently the household purchasing decision-makers. Yahoo said Shine creates an opportunity for advertisers to reach this audience in an environment relevant and meaningful to women.


                Yahoo expects the site to be especially attractive to advertisers in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals and retail categories, where combined online advertising spending is expected to exceed $1.8 billion this year, based on a competitive-spending analysis by TNS Media Intelligence.


                "Yahoo didn't have a vertical explicitly dedicated to women, so this is a smart move. It's not costly for Yahoo to put this together, and it gives the company cross-promotional opportunities for other Yahoo properties," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Yahoo has created what amounts to a formula for these types of vertical sites. It's a very slick presentation. It could be a very valuable property."


                Will Google Follow?


                Content verticals are also an area that differentiates Yahoo from its chief competitor, Google. Sterling said projects like Shine are outside Google's comfort zone. While Google has focused on verticals like finance and health, he said, the search titan is not likely to hire an editorial staff and begin generating large volumes of original content.


                "If Google could do something like this on a purely automated basis, it might," Sterling said. "Google might come up with a tool that would enable people to personalize content around certain themes to a high degree, such as a news reader. But Google would not invest in creating content for specific demographics."

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                  Update: Google brings offline access to Docs and Apps


                  Juan Carlos Perez


                  San Francisco - Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

                  The first application to get this offline access will be the word processor, said Ken Norton, Google Docs product manager. "The design goal is to create a seamless experience, with or without an Internet connection," he said.

                  Over the next three weeks or so, Google will turn on the feature for all word processor users, giving them the ability to view and edit documents while offline. During the same time period, Google Docs' spreadsheet will gain offline ability for viewing, but not editing, documents.

                  Google Docs' third component, an application to make slide presentations, will remain for now without offline access. However, Google has plans to extend the offline access to it and to other hosted services in the Google Apps suite, of which Docs is part. Apps also includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk, and others.

                  "Offline access of [hosted] apps is the next step in making the Web as a whole a lot more reliable," Norton said.

                  Expectation for offline access in Docs and Apps had been building since Google introduced its Gears open source technology in May of last year. Until now, Google had only built Gears offline functionality for its Reader RSS feed manager.

                  By allowing Docs and Apps users to work offline, Google is addressing one of the biggest objections to Web-hosted applications. So far, offline access has required that users export their Docs files to third-party file formats, such as Microsoft Office.

                  Google Docs, a free software suite available to anyone with a Google account, is aimed primarily at consumers, while Google Apps, designed mainly for workplace use, has been adopted mostly by small organizations.

                  Offline access to documents is "one of the big things they need to be competitive in the enterprise. It's a critical step in gaining that appeal," said Rebecca Wettemann, a Nucleus Research analyst.

                  As Google extends offline access to more of its applications and services, it should help organizations understand how this capability can be useful in the real world, Wettemann said. It's important that the introduction of offline access doesn't remain in the realm of a cool novelty, she said.

                  "Google should take the opportunity to talk about what are the best practices and use cases in which this approach makes sense and delivers greater value than traditional desktop applications," Wettemann said.

                  With Docs and Apps, Google is pushing a conceptual shift in productivity and collaboration software that so far has been at odds with Microsoft's. Google's view is that software should be hosted by the vendor in order to reduce the customers' cost and the complexity of installing and maintaining it.

                  Google and other hosted-software proponents also point out that their applications make it easier for users to share documents and collaborate on them, because the files are hosted on a central server and not locked in users' PCs.

                  Microsoft has been criticized for being slow to adapt its software for this Web-hosted model. However, the company lately has been taking steps to recover lost ground with an approach that tries to mix the best of both worlds, with enhancements to Office Live Workspace , which is still in beta, or test, mode. Along the way, Microsoft wants to make sure it retains the dominance it has had in the office productivity market with its ubiquitous Office suite.

                  Gears is a browser plug-in that can store files and data locally, as well as run JavaScript applications without a server connection. It's this architecture that will allow Docs users to work on their word processing documents if their Internet connection drops or if they're somewhere without one, like on an airplane.

                  To access their Docs files offline, users need only install the Gears plug-in and type in the regular Google Docs URL: docs.google.

                  Work done offline will be automatically synchronized with the Google Docs servers when users connect to the Internet.


                  As an open-source technology, Gears can be used by developers outside of Google.


                  The offline access will be turned on "in batches" over the coming weeks in consumer Docs accounts and in the administrator consoles of Apps.


                  Gears is currently supported in Internet Explorer 6 and above and Firefox 1.5 and above for Windows XP and Vista, according to Google . Firefox 1.5 and above is also supported on Mac OS X 10.2 and above and Linux. Gears also runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 and above in Internet Explorer 4.01 and above.


                  Google isn't the only provider of productivity and collaboration software to provide offline access for its applications. Players in this market like Zoho and Yahoo's Zimbra also have offline capabilities in their suites.

                  This story was updated on March 31, 2008

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                    Yahoo launches Shine website for women


                    SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -
                    Yahoo on Monday began wooing women with a Shine website focusing on subjects such as love, money, beauty, home and parenting.





                    A website launched at http://shine.yahoo features nine categories the California Internet pioneer believes appeal to the approximately 40 million women ages 25 through 54 that use Yahoo monthly.




                    "Yahoo Shine speaks to you as a friend, telling you the secrets and tips to simplify your life," said website editor-in-chief Brandon Holley.




                    "You can count on us to bring attitude and personality, and find humor in almost every topic we cover, whether it's a post on men who wear skinny jeans, how you can get back into your skinny jeans, or whether you'll be taken seriously if you wear jeans to work."




                    Shine will have lifestyle and entertainment articles from major US media firms Conde Nast Publications and Hearst Corporation.




                    "We're delighted that Yahoo has turned to so many of our magazines and websites for content for its new women's website," said Conde Nast vice president of editorial operations Rick Levine.




                    "By speaking to Yahoo's huge audience, this partnership will give our great editorial properties a significant growth opportunity."




                    The website will showcase popular blogs and has an in-house news staff to write stories daily.




                    "Increasing the visibility of our blog content is a key element in driving additional traffic and converting passive readers into loyal fans," said Hearst magazines digital media vice president Christopher Johnson.




                    "With more than 130 million visitors each month to Yahoo in the US, Yahoo will become a giant megaphone for us and allow Hearst's network of bloggers to elevate their voices and be heard by a much larger audience."




                    Yahoo will also channel content to Shine from other of its websites, including those devoted to food, finance, astrology, and health.




                    "We're executing on Yahoo's starting point strategy by ensuring that women who start their day with Yahoo are offered a more relevant experience," said Yahoo Media senior vice president Scott Moore.




                    "Yahoo Shine adds an important piece to our media portfolio, which already includes sites that are number one in the news, sports, finance, and entertainment categories."




                    Yahoo hopes to cash in on online advertising aimed at women.

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                      Google Brings Offline Access to Docs and Apps


                      Juan Carlos Perez

                      Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

                      The first application to get this offline access will be the word processor, said Ken Norton, Google Docs product manager. "The design goal is to create a seamless experience, with or without an Internet connection," he said.

                      Over the next three weeks or so, Google will turn on the feature for all word processor users, giving them the ability to view and edit documents while offline. During the same time period, Google Docs' spreadsheet will gain offline ability for viewing, but not editing, documents.

                      Google Docs' third component, an application to make slide presentations, will remain for now without offline access. However, Google has plans to extend the offline access to it and to other hosted services in the Google Apps suite, of which Docs is part. Apps also includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk and others.

                      "Offline access of [hosted] apps is the next step in making the Web as a whole a lot more reliable," Norton said.

                      Google Gears Raised Expectations

                      Expectation for offline access in Docs and Apps had been building since Google introduced its Gears open-source technology in May of last year. Until now, Google had only built Gears offline functionality for its Reader RSS feed manager.

                      By allowing Docs and Apps users to work offline, Google is addressing one of the biggest objections to Web-hosted applications. So far, offline access has required that users export their Docs files to third-party file formats, like Microsoft Office.

                      Gears is a browser plug-in that can store files and data locally, as well as run JavaScript applications without a server connection. It's this architecture that will allow Docs users to work on their word processing documents if their Internet connection drops or if they're somewhere without one, such as an airplane.

                      To access their Docs files offline, users need only install the Gears plug-in and type in the regular Google Docs URL: docs.google.

                      Work done offline will be automatically synchronized with the Google Docs servers when users connect to the Internet.

                      As an open-source technology, Gears can be used by developers outside of Google.

                      The offline access will be turned on "in batches" over the coming weeks in consumer Docs accounts and in the administrator consoles of Apps.

                      Gears is currently supported in Internet Explorer 6 and above and Firefox 1.5 and above for Windows XP and Vista, according to Google. Firefox 1.5 and above is also supported on Mac OS X 10.2 and above and Linux. Gears also runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 and above in Internet Explorer 4.01 and above.

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                        EU debates cybercrime law enforcement


                        By JAN SLIVA, Associated Press Writer


                        BRUSSELS, Belgium - Two groups working separately to boost Europe's defenses against online crime will present proposals this week, almost a year after most of the nation of Estonia's links to the Internet were disrupted for days or weeks.

                        At a two-day conference starting Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, the Council of Europe will to review implementation of the international Convention on Cybercrime and discuss ways to improve international cooperation.

                        Cyber defense also will be on the agenda when heads of state from NATO's 26 member nations gather in Bucharest Wednesday for three days. The leaders are expected to debate new guidelines for coordinating cyber defense.

                        The Convention on Cybercrime, a binding treaty ratified by most members of the 47-nation Council of Europe, provide guidelines to protect computer users against hackers and Internet fraud.

                        The controversial agreement also covers electronic evidence used in prosecution of such offenses as child sexual exploitation, organized crime and terrorism. At this week's conference, the council will discuss guidelines to bolster the convention to improve cooperation between investigators and Internet providers, according to the council's Web site.

                        Participants and speakers at the conference — including police officials and representatives of technology companies such as Microsoft Corp., eBay Inc., McAfee Inc. and Symantec Inc. — also will address training.

                        NATO's three-day summit, which is to focus on enlarging the treaty organization and on its operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan, will include a special briefing on cyber defense, according to the treaty organization's Web site.

                        Some cybercrime experts are casting current Internet security challenges in terms of terrorism, while others remain focused on data loss, identity theft and fraud.

                        Marco Gercke, lecturer in computer law at University of Cologne in Germany, said cybercrime poses new law enforcement challenges because data can now be exchanged very fast over vast international reaches.

                        "Compared to regular terror attacks, it is much easier for the offenders to hide their identity. There are at least 10 unique challenges that make it very difficult to fight computer-related crime," said Gercke, one of the conference participants. "The success rate of cybercrime is very high."

                        Privacy advocates, the American Civil Liberties Union and others are concerned that the Cybercrime Convention presses businesses and individuals to aid law enforcement in new ways and subjects them to surveillance that violates the U.S. Constitution.

                        President Bush signed the treaty in 2003 and the U.S. Senate ratified it in 2006. The convention has been ratified by 21 other nations.

                        The type of assault Estonian Internet service providers suffered — which included denial-of-service attacks, where criminals flood a server with so many requests for connections that it is overwhelmed — is particularly difficult to block because servers can't easily distinguish between legitimate and bogus requests for access, experts have said.

                        Estonian officials initially blamed the attacks on the Russian government but later acknowledged they had no proof of government involvement, though they said most of the computers launching the attacks were in Russia.

                        Estonia has set up a center to tackle computer-related crime and wants a global treaty on combatting cyber attacks because laws in many countries are inadequate or conflict, which can make prosecution of cyber criminals difficult.

                        The tiny Baltic state, which has one of the world's highest rates of Internet use, has said the attacks damaged its economy because it depends heavily on the Internet.

                        Russian officials deny any involvement in the cyber onslaught which erupted during violent protests by ethnic Russians against moving a Soviet-era monument out of the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

                        Web sites run by media outlets, government institutions and banks denied access to users outside Estonia. Among other impacts, Estonians traveling abroad couldn't get at their bank accounts.


                        The attack also included e-mail spam.


                        ___


                        On the Net:

                        http://www.coe.int/cybercrime

                        http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2008/04-april/e0402b.html

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                          CareerBuilder, Facebook in job ads venture


                          By Nick Zieminski


                          NEW YORK (Reuters) -
                          Internet jobs site CareerBuilder
                          is teaming up with Facebook to help clients run job recruiting
                          campaigns within the online social network, the two companies
                          said on Monday.


                          Specialized recruiting ads will promote CareerBuilder and
                          employers' sections within Facebook, with the aim of attracting
                          potential hires who may be hard to reach via traditional
                          methods like newspaper help-wanted ads.


                          Silicon Valley-based Facebook was founded in 2004 as a
                          social site for students at Harvard University and spread
                          quickly to other colleges and eventually into work places. Its
                          popularity stems from how the site conveniently allows users to
                          share details of their lives with selected friends online.


                          Targeted ads will appear on the side of the Facebook site,
                          or within a user's daily summary of activity among their
                          network of friends. Clicking on an ad will take users to a
                          CareerBuilder Web page.


                          Building on CareerBuilder's existing ad sales relationship
                          with Facebook, the job recruiter also plans to act as a conduit
                          for corporate clients to reach potential recruits.


                          "CareerBuilder is spending a considerable amount of money
                          to promote on the Facebook site and the Facebook network, and
                          then we'll have the ability to resell certain units to continue
                          that promotion for our clients," said Richard Castellini, vice
                          president of consumer marketing for CareerBuilder.


                          Facebook and CareerBuilder declined to specify the value of
                          the non-exclusive advertising deal, which initially focuses on
                          the U.S. market. CareerBuilder is owned by newspaper publishers
                          McClatchy Co (MNI.N), Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N) and Tribune Co.


                          Using the site (http://www.facebook/careerbuilder),
                          help-wanted advertisers will be better able to target their
                          search for job candidates, Castellini said.


                          For example, an engineering firm may be able to target
                          college seniors who are about to earn degrees in engineering or
                          a hospital recruiter might find Facebook users who are nurses.


                          Facebook declined to comment on whether it was considering
                          a similar ad deal with Monster Worldwide Inc (MNST.O), which
                          runs rival jobs Web site Monster. "The only relationship we
                          have in place is with CareerBuilder," said Mike Murphy,
                          Facebook's vice president of media sales.


                          Murphy said users' privacy would be protected.


                          "We're not inserting anything into anybody's profile," he
                          said. "We're just having them run advertising using Facebook
                          Ads to prospective employees, and have them choose whether to
                          participate or not."


                          Facebook is the Web's fifth-most-trafficked site, with 67
                          million active users worldwide. The site has signed up more
                          than 85 percent of U.S. college students attending four-year
                          colleges, according to company statistics.

                          Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), an investor in Facebook, supplies
                          the advertising network for Facebook.


                          (Additional reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Braden
                          Reddall)

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                            Google starts letting users edit documents offline


                            SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
                            Google Inc said on Monday it is
                            taking the next step to make its Web-based software useful in
                            the real world of spotty Internet access by allowing users to
                            edit word processing documents offline.


                            The world's top Internet company said it will begin over
                            the next several weeks to allow users of its Google Docs word
                            processing application to edit documents without an active Web
                            connection, on planes, trains and other disconnected spots.


                            The offline feature of Google Docs temporarily stores
                            documents changes on a user's local computer. Once reconnected
                            to the Internet, any changes the user made will automatically
                            be synchronized and stored on Google-hosted computers.


                            "This is still early days. We're working to make more Web
                            applications and functions work where connections are
                            unavailable," Google said in a statement.


                            These include the ability to edit spreadsheets and viewing
                            or editing presentations, among other applications Google now
                            offers online, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said.


                            Offline editing is a free feature using a technology known
                            as Google Gears that the company introduced around 15 months
                            ago to application developers to build offline features into
                            their own programs.


                            The technology already works within Google's news feed
                            reader, Google Reader, and applications from independent Web
                            developers
                            such as task-management service "Remember the Milk,"
                            from an Australian-based company of the same name.


                            (Reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Andre Grenon )

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                              Family pursues MySpace sex assault suit


                              By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer


                              NEW ORLEANS - The family of a teenage girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met on MySpace asked a federal appeals court Monday to revive their lawsuit against the social networking Web site.

                              A federal judge in Austin, Texas, dismissed the $30 million suit in February 2007, rejecting the family's claim that MySpace has a legal duty to protect its young users from sexual predators.

                              U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks also ruled that interactive computer services like MySpace are immune from such lawsuits under the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

                              The girl's family asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to overturn Sparks' rulings. A three-judge panel heard arguments Monday from lawyers on both sides of the case, but didn't immediately rule on the appeal.

                              Harry Reasoner, a lawyer for MySpace and News Corp., said Congress enacted the 1996 law to promote the growth of the Internet and protect online companies from tort litigation.

                              "That doesn't leave it unregulated," Reasoner told the judges. "Any of these Web sites can be prosecuted for criminal conduct."

                              Gregory Coleman, a lawyer for the girl's family, said the law only gives MySpace a "limited shield" from liability.

                              "It has a responsibility to (protect) children," he said.

                              The girl, identified as Julie Doe in court papers, was 13 when she created a MySpace profile in 2005. MySpace requires users to be at least 14, but the girl misrepresented herself as 18 years old.

                              She was 14 when Pete Solis, then 19, contacted her through MySpace and corresponded for several weeks before he allegedly sexually assaulted her during a meeting in a Travis County, Texas, parking lot in May 2006.

                              The girl's mother reported the alleged assault to police a day later. Solis, of Buda, Texas, later was indicted on a sexual assault charge — a felony punishable by a 20-year prison sentence — and is awaiting trial.

                              The girl's family sued MySpace and its parent company, News Corp., alleging fraud and negligence. They claim MySpace markets itself to children but has failed to implement basic safety measures, such as age verification or privacy settings.

                              "It needed to take reasonable measures," Coleman said.

                              However, Sparks said requiring MySpace to confirm the ages of its more than 100 million users would "of course stop (its) business in its tracks."

                              "If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace," the judge wrote.

                              In court papers, lawyers for the girl's family cite 11 cases between December 2005 and June 2006 in which adults face criminal charges stemming from contact with underage MySpace users.

                              MySpace has denied any wrongdoing. Although the site uses computer programs to root out underage users who lie about their age to create a profile, MySpace says it warns members that its safety protections are not foolproof.

                              "We warn parents. We have elaborate advice," Reasoner said, noting that Julie Doe circumvented MySpace's safety features by misrepresenting herself as an 18-year-old.

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                                Sacramento Bee names new publisher


                                SACRAMENTO - The Sacramento Bee on Monday named a new publisher to guide the newspaper as it struggles with declining revenue and tries to extend its reach on the Internet.

                                Cheryl Dell, president and publisher of The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash., will replace Janis Heaphy, who announced her retirement Monday.

                                Both papers are owned by The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento, which has been struggling financially since it acquired Knight Ridder newspapers in 2006.

                                The newspaper industry in general has seen declines in circulation and ad revenue in recent years, as readers and advertisers have migrated to the Internet. The Bee has been hit especially hard by the downturn in California's real estate market, which has had ripples through the state's economy.

                                "We are indeed fortunate to have someone of Cheryl's considerable abilities ready to step in and lead the Bee," McClatchy Vice President Frank Whittaker said in a statement.

                                Dell will head her third McClatchy newspaper when she takes over on April 14.

                                She has been president and publisher of The News Tribune since 2004 and was publisher of the Tri-City Herald, also in Washington, from 2000 to 2004. McClatchy said it is looking for Dell's replacement in Tacoma.

                                Dell said it was too soon to predict what changes she might make at the Bee or whether that could involve reorganization or job losses.

                                "It's challenging times everywhere. Sacramento is not unique in that way," she said in a telephone interview. "I do think you can have some wonderful outcomes from adversity."

                                Dell, 48, is a Modesto native and graduate of Sacramento State University. She joined McClatchy in 1997 as advertising director of The Modesto Bee. She became vice president of sales and marketing at The Fresno Bee in 1999.

                                Heaphy, 56, became The Sacramento Bee's publisher in 1998 after a marketing career at the Los Angeles Times. She is getting married and said she plans to move to Sun Valley, Idaho.

                                "Under Janis' direction, The Sacramento Bee earned many of journalism's highest awards, while enthusiastically embracing digital opportunities," Whittaker said in announcing the change. "In many of those years, the Bee achieved record revenues. In the last several years, Janis has made many wise decisions to reposition and restructure the Bee to meet new economic challenges. That's a credit to her and the senior team she built around her."

                                McClatchy Co. is the nation's third largest newspaper company, with 31 daily newspapers among its holdings.

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                                  CNet Networks to cut 120 jobs


                                  SAN FRANCISCO - CNet Networks Inc. says it is laying off 120 employees as part of an effort to streamline the online media company while generating more content for its news and entertainment sites.

                                  All the layoffs — about 4.4 percent of CNet's work force — will involve employees in the U.S., according to a document CNet filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

                                  CNet's suite of popular Web sites commands a huge worldwide audience, but its investors have long complained the company's profits haven't kept pace with the growth of Internet advertising.

                                  The company indicated in the filing that the layoffs would be effective immediately and cost at least $3.8 million in severance pay, outplacement and other expenses.

                                  Along with the technology news site CNet, the San Francisco-based company operates News, TV, GameSpot, Chow and BNet. It said in a February filing that, as of Dec. 31, it employed about 2,700 people worldwide.

                                  CNet shares rose 6 cents Wednesday to close at $7.25.

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                                    Malaysian blogger hit with libel payout: reports


                                    KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) -
                                    A Malaysian court has ordered a top blogger and editors of an opposition newspaper to pay damages over libel claims by a university head, reports said Thursday.

                                    University Utara Malaysia and its vice-chancellor Nordin Kardi filed a lawsuit against Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who runs the Malaysia Today website, over an item that alleged Nordin had plagiarised an article.




                                    The high court made the decision Wednesday after Raja Petra and the opposition party Keadilan's newspaper, which also published the story, failed to file a defence, the official Bernama news agency said.




                                    It ordered Raja Petra to pay 4.0 million ringgit (1.25 million dollars) to Nordin and the university, while two editors of "Suara Keadilan" had to pay 3.0 million ringgit.

                                    Malaysia's blogs and alternative news websites have become popular because some people believe the mainstream press, which is mostly linked to the government, is biased.




                                    Alternate news was read avidly ahead of March 8 elections that handed the ruling coalition its worst ever results in its half-century reign over Malaysia.

                                    Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said this week that his "biggest mistake" was to ignore cyber-campaigning, and the new information minister has said he will reach out to bloggers.




                                    Previously, they had been vilified as "liars" and threatened with detention without trial under internal security laws.




                                    However, Nordin said his victory would inspire others, including politicians, to take legal action against people who abuse blogs.




                                    "Maybe I will not get the money because they cannot afford it, but I am satisfied because this case proves there is an avenue in the form of civil action against bloggers who hurl slander," he told Bernama.




                                    Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks Malaysia 124 out of 169 on its worldwide press freedom index.

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                                      Malaysian blogger hit with libel payout: reports


                                      KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) -
                                      A Malaysian court has ordered a top blogger and editors of an opposition newspaper to pay damages over libel claims by a university head, reports said Thursday.

                                      University Utara Malaysia and its vice-chancellor Nordin Kardi filed a lawsuit against Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who runs the Malaysia Today website, over an item that alleged Nordin had plagiarised an article.




                                      The high court made the decision Wednesday after Raja Petra and the opposition party Keadilan's newspaper, which also published the story, failed to file a defence, the official Bernama news agency said.




                                      It ordered Raja Petra to pay 4.0 million ringgit (1.25 million dollars) to Nordin and the university, while two editors of "Suara Keadilan" had to pay 3.0 million ringgit.

                                      Malaysia's blogs and alternative news websites have become popular because some people believe the mainstream press, which is mostly linked to the government, is biased.




                                      Alternate news was read avidly ahead of March 8 elections that handed the ruling coalition its worst ever results in its half-century reign over Malaysia.

                                      Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said this week that his "biggest mistake" was to ignore cyber-campaigning, and the new information minister has said he will reach out to bloggers.




                                      Previously, they had been vilified as "liars" and threatened with detention without trial under internal security laws.




                                      However, Nordin said his victory would inspire others, including politicians, to take legal action against people who abuse blogs.




                                      "Maybe I will not get the money because they cannot afford it, but I am satisfied because this case proves there is an avenue in the form of civil action against bloggers who hurl slander," he told Bernama.




                                      Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks Malaysia 124 out of 169 on its worldwide press freedom index.

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                                        China to clamp down on mapping websites: state media


                                        SHANGHAI (AFP) -
                                        The Chinese government will clamp down on mapping websites and other online geographical information that it fears might undermine national security, state media reported Thursday.





                                        Eight government agencies, including the foreign ministry, are to tighten supervision of geographical information available online, the official China Daily reported.




                                        There are nearly 10,000 online map websites in China and authorities will close down most of them as they show maps without approval, said Min Yiren, deputy director with the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.




                                        "Some websites publish sensitive or confidential geographical information, which might leak state secrets and threaten security," Min said.




                                        A hotline has been set up for the public to report illegal websites, he said.




                                        The campaign will also target websites labelling Taiwan as a separate country, according to Min.




                                        Taiwan and China have been ruled separately since the end of a civil war in 1949, but Beijing still considers the island part of its territory and insists on reunification.




                                        China previously ordered foreigners who engage in surveying and mapping to obtain approval from the government and accept supervision.




                                        The mapping bureau said earlier that foreigners who illegally survey, gather and publish geographical information on China will be "severely punished".




                                        Chinese partners or translators will also be fined if they fail to stop illegal mapping activities as soon as they find out about them, it said.

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                                          LA Times apologizes for Tupac story


                                          By Bob Tourtellotte
                                          2 hours, 31 minutes ago


                                          LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
                                          The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday
                                          apologized for publishing a story about the 1994 shooting of
                                          rapper Tupac Shakur, after a Web site questioned the
                                          authenticity of documents the paper used for the report.

                                          The story by Pulitzer Prize-winner Chuck Philips sought to
                                          link rap music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs to the assault on
                                          Shakur through two men the paper said were Combs' associates.

                                          Shortly after its publication last week, Combs called the
                                          Times story "beyond ridiculous and ... completely false." He
                                          strongly denied any involvement in the attack.

                                          The Smoking Gun, a Web site that specializes in uncovering
                                          news from legal documents and court filings, said on Wednesday
                                          it believed Federal Bureau of Investigation documents used by
                                          the Times were forgeries.

                                          The paper launched an immediate investigation, and Philips
                                          issued an apology later in the day, as did his supervisor,
                                          deputy managing editor Marc Duvoisin.

                                          "In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I
                                          failed to do my job," Philips said. "I'm sorry."

                                          Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton, who took the top job
                                          last month after several years of cutback-related upheaval at
                                          the fourth-largest paper in the United States, said he would
                                          launch an internal review of the documents and the reporting
                                          surrounding the story.

                                          "We published this story with the sincere belief that the
                                          documents were genuine, but our good intentions are beside the
                                          point," Stanton said in a statement published on the paper's
                                          Web site.

                                          "The bottom line is that the documents we relied on should
                                          not have been used. We apologize both to our readers and to
                                          those referenced in the documents and, as a result, in the
                                          story. We are continuing to investigate this matter and will
                                          fulfill our journalistic responsibility for critical
                                          self-examination."

                                          Shakur, one of rap's rising singers, survived a beating and
                                          gunshot wounds to the groin, head, hand and thigh at the Quad
                                          Recording Studios in New York City in 1994 but was killed in
                                          1996 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

                                          The documents have black marks covering the name of the
                                          agent or agents who prepared them, appear as if parts were
                                          created using a typewriter and "are nowhere to be found" in the
                                          FBI's computer system, according to The Smoking Gun.

                                          DETAILED ACCOUNT

                                          The Times story, which first appeared on its Web site on
                                          March 17 and days later in print, gave a detailed account of
                                          the 1994 attack on Shakur.

                                          At the time, Combs was one of rap's biggest producers with
                                          his Bad Boy Records housing stars like the Notorious B.I.G.
                                          (Christopher Wallace).

                                          The 1994 attack ignited a widely reported feud between East
                                          Coast and West Coast rappers that eventually led to the 1996
                                          killing of Shakur. Six months later, Wallace was shot and
                                          killed in Los Angeles.

                                          Neither of the murders has been solved. The identity of
                                          Shakur's attackers at Quad Studios has never been revealed.

                                          The Times story cited "recently obtained" FBI records and
                                          an unnamed FBI informant as saying Sabatino and talent manager
                                          Jimmy Rosemond planned Shakur's assault. Combs and Wallace knew
                                          Shakur was being set up, the Times said.


                                          In its story, the Times said it contacted the FBI informant
                                          and verified he was at Quad Studios on the night of the
                                          assault. It said other sources verified the informant's
                                          account.


                                          (Editing by Mary Milliken and Eric Beech)

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                                            Advice to parents: Give your kids their (My)space


                                            By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
                                            1 hour, 53 minutes ago


                                            Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University-Dominguez Hills, has long studied "the Net generation," the first to have grown up with the Internet, not to mention cellphones. In Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation (Palgrave Macmillan), he helps parents understand social networks. His advice: Talk to your kids, learn the technology and don't panic. USA TODAY's Janet Kornblum spoke with the author.

                                            Q: Why did you write this book?

                                            A: For kids - what I'm calling the Net generation, anybody born after 1980 - technology is not a tool. It just is. It's part of their life. They think of it differently.

                                            Q: How has technology influenced this generation?

                                            A: They do things in a more abbreviated fashion. They IM (instant-message) with multiple people at the same time. They can't uni-task. They do everything on their own. They're very self-motivated.

                                            Q: How does it specifically affect their relationships?

                                            A: They make commitments to people online they don't even know. But their strongest commitment is to their family. They see more of the world as a social world. So social problems are very important to them.

                                            Q: Do you think the Internet is fundamentally changing kids?

                                            A: This world encourages us to multitask. I think it encourages kids to be much less patient. More terse.

                                            Q: Why are social networks so popular?

                                            A: When I grew up (a baby boomer), our social life was outside. We hung out. The next generation spent time at the mall. This generation spends time at home - connected. Kids have to be social. It's all part of the preteen and teen years and young adult years. MySpace happened to come around at the right time when you had a whole generation of kids who needed a place to be social.

                                            Q: Weigh the positives and the negatives of social networking.

                                            A: Because they have a combination of people they know face-to-face in the real world and people they don't, (those of the Net generation) get a lot of chances to bounce ideas and to test out things on a social network that they probably wouldn't do face-to-face.

                                            I hear that a lot from kids - that they feel much more comfortable saying things online than they ever would off-line. That's a real positive because they get to test out their world. They get to figure out who they are.

                                            Q: So how should parents think about social networks?

                                            A: You can certainly use your parenting skills to help them get the most out of MySpace - to not be addicted, to not be bullied and to know what to do when you're bullied. But taking (MySpace) away from them is really like restricting going to the mall with their friends or going to school and talking to their friends. It's tantamount to making them a pariah.

                                            Q: Can you give some solid parenting tips?

                                            A: Talk to your kids. If the computer is in their rooms - which is not a good idea - walk in and ask them what they are doing. Ask them what's new, what they like about it - don't be judgmental. Tell them you want to learn. Kids love rules, believe it or not. Kids need limits.


                                            They're defining a new generational attitude. But they're not new teenagers. We know what adolescents do.


                                            You have to learn what potential problems there might be, and then, like a good, authoritative parent, you discuss those with your kids. You know there might be sexual predators out there. And you have to know: 'Well, does anyone say anything nasty to you? How do you handle that?'

                                            Q: Compare the Internet and social networking to television.


                                            A: Every waking minute of every day, they are interacting with some sort of technological medium, except perhaps when they're in school, and even then, kids are texting from their pockets. They're wearing iPods all day. It's just a different world for them. The impact of television on society took years and years and years. And we had a chance to adapt to it.


                                            The kinds of tools these kids are using are vast. Nobody heard of MySpace five years ago. Nobody heard of an iPod five years ago. Nobody heard of instant messaging.


                                            This is a rapidly changing technological world and the kids are the first ones to adapt technology.

                                            Q: Are parents keeping up?


                                            A: Parents have a total misconception about what their kids are doing online.


                                            They don't know how much time they're spending. They don't have the breadth of what's happening to the kids online. They think the kids are being attacked by predators all the time. They are way over-concerned about the technology that the kids are using.


                                            Everything is so different from year to year. No wonder the parents are afraid.


                                            They don't have to know everything, but they've got to see what MySpace is about. They've got to understand this whole thing of kids text-messaging all day long. They have to understand what it means to have kids plugged into their iPod all day long.

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                                              Chinese movie site sues Hollywood group

                                              1 hour, 48 minutes ago


                                              HONG KONG - A Chinese movie download Web site has sued a Hollywood industry group for libel over a statement that it says implies that the company admitted to piracy as part of a legal settlement.

                                              Beijing Jeboo Interactive Science & Technology Co. filed the lawsuit against the Motion Picture Association in a Beijing court last week, company official Xie Jiangping told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

                                              An MPA official didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

                                              The libel lawsuit stems from a previous lawsuit Hollywood studios filed against Jeboo.

                                              Five studios sued Jeboo in Shanghai in September and December for supplying Internet cafes with computer software that allowed users to download and watch illegal copies of 20 Hollywood movies, including "Hitch" and "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest."

                                              MPA said in a statement earlier this month the five studios reached an agreement with Jeboo. The Hollywood studios involved are Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures.

                                              The statement says the defendants "confirmed the cessation of infringing activities," apologized and paid a "significant" amount of compensation.

                                              Xie said the terms of the deal were confidential but said Jeboo never admitted to piracy.

                                              "We cannot tolerate statements that don't reflect the truth," he said.

                                              Jeboo claims to be China's largest distributor of non-pirated digital entertainment video.

                                              ___

                                              On the Net:

                                              http://www.jeboo

                                              http://www.mpa-i.org

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                                                Free Web version of Photoshop launches


                                                By AMANDA FEHD, Associated Press Writer
                                                1 hour, 4 minutes ago


                                                SAN FRANCISCO - The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.

                                                San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. says it hopes to boost its name recognition among a new generation of consumers who edit, store and share photos online.

                                                While Photoshop is designed for trained professionals, Adobe says Photoshop Express, which it launched in a "beta" test version, is easier to learn. User comments will be taken into account for future upgrades.

                                                Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

                                                Web-based software is increasingly popular, and Adobe knows it's got to get on that train, said Kathleen Maher, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research.

                                                Many kinds of software are available for use online in a trend known as "software as a service," or "cloud computing." The earliest were e-mail programs, but they now include services to create and manage content and even whole operating systems. And they don't require time-consuming upgrades because they're maintained by the service provider.

                                                Google Inc. provides a host of such services, as do Microsoft Corp. and others.

                                                "This is the battlefield where Adobe and Microsoft and Google are going to fight some pretty big battles," Maher said.

                                                Photoshop enters the online photo-management arena many years after such services first appeared. Some companies have already made a big name for themselves, like 9-year-old storage solution Shutterfly Inc., photo-editing service Picnik or image-sharing site Photobucket Inc.

                                                Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that's in the works.

                                                Ron Glaz, a research analyst at IDC, says the move was necessary for Adobe to keep pace. Users are less likely to switch to a software they aren't familiar with, he said.

                                                "They have a whole market that they are missing out on, and they need to make sure that the market is aware there is a Photoshop solution for them. As that market grows and becomes more sophisticated, hopefully it will generate money," Glaz said.

                                                "It's one of those things, if you can't beat them, join them," Glaz said. "If they don't join them, the long run could be really painful."

                                                ___

                                                On the Web: http://www.photoshop/express

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                                                Report shows Google ad viewership flattening


                                                By Eric Auchard
                                                33 minutes ago


                                                SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
                                                Google Inc showed modest growth
                                                during February in a closely watched report released on
                                                Wednesday on how search sites like Google get paid by
                                                advertisers, and its shares fell 3.2 percent.


                                                Flat year-over-year growth by Google on the same basis in
                                                comScore's January report, which was released in late February,
                                                led to an 8 percent one-day drop in Google's stock the day
                                                afterward and a fierce Wall Street debate on whether revenue
                                                growth is slowing or if Google's own actions are to blame.


                                                Lurking behind this discussion is investor concern that
                                                Google's growth in terms of paid clicks has slowed from around
                                                30 percent to 40 percent six months ago, raising the prospect
                                                that the economy is to blame for some of Google's slowdown.


                                                "You can't avoid the trend. Something that was humming
                                                along at 40 percent is now near zero: Something is going on
                                                there. Especially when the economy is getting a little
                                                twitchy," said RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler. Last week he
                                                cut his 12-month price target on Google to a Street-low-level
                                                of $530.


                                                ComScore declined to comment on the report, saying it
                                                publishes the data for use by clients, which include companies
                                                in the advertising industry and Wall Street brokerages, which
                                                use the statistics to gauge Google's quarterly revenue trends.


                                                Shares of Google fell $14.52 to $443.67 in extended trade
                                                on Wednesday after the release of comScore's latest click data.
                                                The fall erased a $7.41 gain in the Nasdaq regular session.


                                                Complicating the issue is Google's efforts in recent
                                                quarters to improve the effectiveness of advertising shown in
                                                the margins of its Web search services by paring back the
                                                number of ads per page and reduce inadvertent customer clicks.


                                                "It is not as bad as comScore data shows it but it's not as
                                                good as Wall Street expects it to be," Sandler said.


                                                "Clearly if you believe this data, then things are slowing
                                                (for Google)," UBS analyst Ben Schachter said, adding that, if
                                                paid click growth has flattened, then the only way to sustain
                                                Wall Street revenue expectations is for Google to charge more
                                                for the ads it sells, which may be tough as the economy slows.


                                                Most Wall Street analysts expressed bafflement at what the
                                                data actually means, but said the slower trend is worrisome.


                                                "We are not quite sure what it means. Overall the report
                                                says paid click growth is down. But in some of Google's
                                                operating metrics, there is an interesting improvement,"
                                                Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay said. "It is
                                                premature to say that Google's revenue performance has been
                                                impacted by the economy or anything like that," he said.


                                                One measure of how Google is paring back ads is that
                                                comScore data shows 14 percent reduction in the year-over-year
                                                average number of advertisements per search result page.


                                                "While (Google)'s paid click data does little to calm
                                                investor fears of a slowdown in (Google)'s core business, we
                                                believe most of the deceleration is due to the continuing
                                                quality initiatives by the company itself," Banc of America
                                                analyst Brian Pitz said in a note to clients on Wednesday.


                                                Adding to the confusion for investors are competing
                                                statistics from other sources that show Google is performing
                                                solidly by other measures of its online ad performance.


                                                Web search marketing firm SearchIgnite, which places $300
                                                million in ads on behalf of large- and mid-sized advertisers
                                                and their ad agencies, says its own data shows Google's
                                                year-to-year paid click rate growing 29.0 percent in February.


                                                Roger Barnette, president of Atlanta-based SearchIgnite,
                                                said the amount of advertising spending by its clients on
                                                Google rose 37.9 percent in February from a year ago.


                                                "The comScore data has been a bit more conservative
                                                regarding what they are tracking on Google. We just haven't
                                                seen that with our clients. We see significant year over year
                                                increases in clicks and media spending," Barnette said.



                                                However, Barnette adds that, "Google is dealing with a lot
                                                of macro things which they weren't dealing with a year ago."



                                                SearchIgnite's data is based on spending patterns of its
                                                500 advertising clients. Google attracts nearly three-quarters
                                                of SearchIgnite client spending, Yahoo 20 percent and Microsoft
                                                draws 6.7 percent. ComScore monitors a panel of 2 million Web
                                                users worldwide.



                                                (Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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