• Ross Fadner, Jun 23, 2009, 1:30 PM
  • Facebook, Google In Battle For Web Dominance Wired You can forget Google vs. Microsoft, says Wired's Fred Vogelstein: "Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet -- its structure, design, and utility." Sure, the last decade or so has belonged to Google and its algorithms and equations for organizing the Web's information, but the future -- at least, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- is a "more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline."

    In this world, users' will tap into their social graph to find products, services, and new friends based on the recommendations of their network. "It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center," says Vogelstein. "In other words, right where Google is now."

    Even Googlers recognize that Facebook represents a growing threat. "Eventually, we are going to collide," one executive says.

    However, talk of a collision certainly seems premature. After all, insiders estimate that Facebook burned through all of the $275 million it made last year, while Google made $4.2 billion on net revenue of $15.8 billion. But ultimately, Facebook executives think they're going after a much bigger market than search: the expensive brand campaigns that have thus far failed to migrate online. "Now," says Vogelsetin, "instead of working together to reach the promised land of online brand advertising, Facebook and Google are racing to see who can get there first." Read the whole story...
  • Facebook Triples Customer Base for Automated Ads Bloomberg News In a sign that small to mid-sized businesses are starting to allocate more of their marketing budgets to social networking, Facebook on Monday said the number of customers using its automated advertising system had more than tripled in the past year. The service lets companies target users based on the information in their profiles. "You basically just have a greater diversity of people using our ad system -- lots of businesses, lots of local businesses finding success," said Tim Kendall, Facebook's director of product marketing for monetization. "It's really been a steady, successful growth pattern."

    Facebook launched the automated ad system in 2007. It lets companies edit their ads on the fly during campaigns, suggesting words for advertisers to use in targeting consumers. The system allows 25 characters in the ad's title, 135 characters in the body of the text, and an optional photo.

    In addition to its automated system, Facebook shows ads sold by Microsoft and has a dedicated sales staff to help companies that want to buy so-called "Engagement Ads." These include features like video and allow users to become "fans" of brands. Read the whole story...
  • FIM to Restructure, Change Name D: All Things Digital Fox Interactive Media CFO Ed McKenna is moving to another post inside News Corp. amid a broader restructuring of the interactive media unit, Kara Swisher reports. The restructuring should see FIM's Web, online advertising and publishing technology units receiving more autonomy, and could also include a name change for the four-year-old division.

    MySpace, of course, is by far the largest of FIM's properties. Aside from nearly cutting its worldwide staff in half, new CEO Owen Van Natta and new News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller are also working on a major overhaul of the MySpace product, which Swisher says "needs to innovate after a fall-off of growth and engagement."

    The original idea behind FIM was to unite the financial, legal, technology and ad sales operations of News Corp.'s standalone digital units. However, according to one source, uniting the disparate units has bloated the company. "In a lot of ways, FIM has become an artificial construct and a lot of the infrastructure it has created should be out in the individual businesses. So, since it is not really an operating unit, it will be taken down to the minimal size to make it work." Swisher notes that there are currently about 100 FIM-only employees-mostly in human resources, accounting and legal. Read the whole story...
  • MySpace Lays Off 300 More Silicon Alley Insider Last week, MySpace, News Corp's flagging social networking giant, laid off 400 domestic workers. Today, the company announced it would be cutting its international staff by 300. "With roughly half of MySpace's total user base coming from outside the U.S., maintaining productive and efficient operations in our international markets is important to users worldwide and our immediate financial strength," MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement. "As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace's staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions. Today's proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy."

    While the cuts were expected, sources tell Silicon Alley Insider that MySpace is actually much worse off than either Van Natta or News Corp Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller expected when they took over the company a few months ago. "Specifically, user-engagement and revenues are in shambles," Nicholas Carlson says. The silver lining is that both Miller and Van Natta are moving fast-Van Natta has now cut MySpace's bloated staff by half, while Miller is busy restructuring Fox Interactive Media into "portfolio companies that will either sink or swim." Read the whole story...
  • Twitter Eyes First Revenues in '09 Bloomberg News In an interview with Bloomberg, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says Twitter is finally on track to generate some revenue this year, as companies like Dell, Whole Foods and Starbucks use the micro-blogging site to communicate with millions of customers. "The idea is if they are getting value out of Twitter then we could add more value to what they are doing and we could get some revenue," Stone said, declining to give sales estimates. "We think we'll get to something this year, however simple, that shows we're making some money."

    One potential revenue source, he said, is verifying Twitter accounts, so users would know that they really are following brands like Whole Foods or Coca-Cola. Another idea is selling statistics to businesses detailing the effectiveness of their tweets, or offering multiple accounts to large businesses with many branches. Stone said the company was focused on growth and was not entertaining any acquisition discussions.

    The latest figures from comScore peg Twitter's user base at 18 million users, making it the third largest social networking site behind Facebook, with 307.1 million users, and MySpace, with 126.9 million. Twitter has held four rounds of venture funding since its start in 2007 and isn't currently seeking more funds, Stone said. Read the whole story...
  • Steve Jobs Back at Apple CNBC.com Read the whole story...
  • Report: Gaming Market to Hit $92 Billion By 2015 IndustryGamers Read the whole story...