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Gavin O'Malley, Monday, October 12, 2009, 12:20 PM
Gauging The Health Of Email
Wall Street Journal et al.
In the wake of several reports touting the health of email, The Wall Street Journal requires nearly 2,000 words to make the opposite case.
Indeed, "Email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet -- logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts," it writes. Now, however, "A new generation of services is starting to take hold -- services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world."
The paper concedes that while email usage is in fact continuing to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen -- up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.
Alas, other papers are crying hyperbole. In a post titled, "Reports of email's death are greatly exaggerated," the Houston Chronicle's TechBlog insists, "Email's not being deprecated, not by a long shot."
In particular, "In the corporate world, email remains king," TechBlog writes. "For important, serious communication, email remains the main way business users work ... And because of social media's distraction factor -- which is very high -- Big Business isn't going to be friending you on Facebook anytime soon: 54 percent of companies ban social media use in the workplace, according to staffing firm Robert Half Technologies."
Claiming that the Journal has totally missed the point, Fast Company put together a long list of reasons why email is here to stay. Along with the whole legacy issue, you can't embed a file directly in a Tweet; Facebook can't be trusted with keeping a corporate Excel file confidential; and "millions of BlackBerry and iPhone users will testify to mobile email's convenience."
Also of note, TechCrunch says the Journal totally missed another key point: Google Wave, which is designed to bridge the gap between traditional email and real-time messaging and communication, is Googles hedge on the continued evolution of email.
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Levinson Resigns From Google Board
Google.com
Further severing ties between Google and Apple, Arthur Levinson on Monday resigned as a member of Google's Board of Directors, effective immediately. The chairman and former CEO of biotech firm Genentech also sits on Apple's Board.
Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission began an antitrust investigation into the ties between the two boards. As a result of that inquiry and building contentiousness between the two companies, Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt recently stepped down from Apple's Board. Increasingly, the two companies are competing against one another on a number of fronts, including mobile and e-commerce.
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Report: VCs Having A Bad Year
VentureBeat
This is shaping up to be a pretty bleak year for venture capitalists, according to new data from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. Just 17 VC firms raised new funds in the third quarter of 2009 -- the smallest number of number of firms in any quarter since the third quarter of 1994.
To be exact, only $1.6 billion was raised by the 17 firms, which is the lowest level of dollars committed since the first quarter of 2003 when $938 million was raised. While venture capital firms typically raise money every three or four years, and so a single quarter represents only a snapshot, the historically low number of firms raising money shows just how much of a crunch the industry is in right now.
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BskyB Launching iTunes Rival
The Telegraph
Challenging Apple's plans for world domination, UK broadcaster BSkyB next week is expected to launch a digital music service to rival iTunes. The satellite broadcaster has signed deals with music suppliers EMI, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music, as well as a number of independents including The Beggars Group and PIAS Entertainment Group, which represents more than 100 independent labels and digital distributor The Orchard. Sky Songs, so-called, will be a subscription-based model, and charge users a fee each month to get access to song downloads in contrast to iTunes' track-by-track purchasing model.
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Analysts: Google Q3 To Outperform
eweek
Ahead of Google's third quarter earnings report on Thursday, analysts are expecting the search giant to the street's expectations. Bernstein Research, for one, said it expects earnings per share of $5.44 compared to Wall Street's consensus of $5.36. Google has certainly kept busy this past quarter, rolling out new Search Options to let users refine search results, adding search by hour and date range functions, as well as the ability to sift through books, blogs and news.
In September, it introduced Google Fast Flip to offer users a different way to browse magazines online, and unveiled its Sidewiki annotation service. Google also began indexing Hot Trends in search results, and moved to accelerate its online display ad business by launching the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
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FriendFeed In Freefall Under Facebook
Steve Rubel
Since Facebook acquired FriendFeed this summer, traffic to the social media aggregator has "plummeted," according to prolific PR technology blogger Steve Rubel. Calling the decline "unsurprising," Rubel explains: "I still see a big space in between in between blogs and Twitter that allows you to have a hub and spoke strategy and post in multiple formats ... That's one reason I am bullish about both Posterous and Tumblr." But, apparently, not FriendFeed.
Facebook paid nearly $50 million for the company, which was founded in 2007 by four former Google software engineers as a way for users to keep track of their friends' activities across social-media services at the same time.
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