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As previously speculated, Google has introduced a new social feature for Gmail. Called Buzz, the service is a continuation of Google's attempt to "find relevance in the noise" that congests services like Twitter. Not long back, Google introduced real-time search, Social Search, and Wave, and Buzz is the next addition to the search giant's social portfolio.

Put simply, Google says Buzz is a new way to start conversations about things you find interesting. It allows you share status updates, photos, videos, RSS information, and more with existing Gmail contacts, all within Gmail's infrastructure. Naturally, relevant Google services such as Picasa are implemented, but Buzz also connects to sites like Flickr and Twitter.

Buzz also has mobile-specific features that rely on position location. For instance, you can tag your location when adding a new post from your handset. The mobile version can also show you nearby activity of other Buzz users, whether you're following them or not. A feature called "Buzz Layer" reveals a (presumably) user-tagged map and shows you what's happening in a given area.

The service has officially launched but the complete roll out will take a few days. Google says it intends to make Buzz a fully open and distributable platform. The company is working on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and developers interested in participating should head over to Google Code.

Google reportedly plans to add a Twitter-like service to Gmail later this week. Twitter, in case this is your first day on the Web, is a microblogging service that allows users to post messages of up to 140 characters, which are displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to subscribers. Facebook also offers a status update system.

While Gmail users can already set their status, each update overwrites the previous message. Google plans to extend this feature, allowing Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with. It will also be tightly integrated with YouTube and Picasa, Google's video and image-sharing services.

Yahoo introduced a similar "status-casting" feature last year, which allows users read their contacts' 140-character updates via Yahoo Mail or Messenger, as well as Flickr, Twitter and others. It's unclear whether Google will link Gmail status updates to rival social-networking services, but it seems like it would be beneficial.

Chinese authorities today announced a major bust against computer hackers in hopes of placating recent criticism that they are not doing enough to help enhance global online security. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, local police forces have shut down what they called the country's biggest hacker training website and arrested three people linked to the site's operation.

The organization openly recruited for new members online and assisted users in creating and distributing Trojan horses and other programs to carry out attacks. Known as Black Hawk Safety Net, the site had reportedly brought in about $1 million in income since launching in 2005 through a network of more than 12,000 paying subscribers -- another 170,000 had signed into the organizations' free membership.

The reports come less than a month after Google said it was no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service, and threatened to pull out of the country, citing a cyber attack targeting the emails of human rights activists within the company (and almost 30 others) along with intellectual property. Curiously, the raid is said to have taken place in late November of 2009 but it is only being reported now.

In an attempt to minimize security vulnerabilities in its Web browser, Google has announced a new program that could earn you a few bucks. The search giant is paying between $500 and $1,337 per security flaw found in either Chrome or Chromium.

The reward varies on the severity of the bug, and those deemed particularly critical or clever will receive the larger amount. Google admits that this program is nothing new, tipping its hat to Mozilla for the organization's "long-running and successful vulnerability reward program."

Virtually any security hole found in Stable, Beta, and Dev builds of the browser is eligible, and even some Chromium project plug-ins (such as Google Gears) and third-party components (like WebKit or libxml) qualify for payment.

Naturally, cash is doled out on a first come first served basis, so if you find a bug, be quick to submit it. Unfortunately, payment cannot be issued to some countries, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.

Apple's decision to block Google Voice from its iPhone App Store caused quite a stir last summer. Besides an expected backlash from users, the move prompted the FCC to open an investigation on all involved parties -- Apple, Google, and AT&T. The latter was quick to distance itself from the controversy, insisting they had nothing to do with the block, while Apple claimed the app wasn't rejected, it just hadn't been approved yet.

Several months have gone by and the issue remains unresolved. However, today Google made good on its promise to bring its call routing and calling service to the iPhone "one way or the other" by unveiling a new web-based version that leverages HTML 5's functionality for quick access to Voice's most important features.


The company already had a version of the service available through mobile web browsers; albeit a pretty limited one. The new version is much more interactive, with the ability to listen to voice mails directly from within the browser and to dial phone numbers on an interactive on-screen keypad. You also get access to voicemail transcriptions, free SMS, and of course the ability to answer all of your phone numbers from a single handset. Unfortunately, the web app cannot access your device's contact list so you'll need to import them.

It should be noted that this version of Google Voice has also been optimized work with Palm's webOS devices, and will work with any other HTML5-compliant device, although the formatting at this point has been tailored to Apple and Palm's platforms. Simply go to m.google.com/voice to make cheaper calls from your device.

The growth of the Internet is showing no signs of slowing down. It's impossible to keep up with the Web's daily happenings -- let alone an entire year worth of activity. The folks at Pingdom have compiled a list of stats from various sources around the Internet to answer questions we've all pondered.

According to the collected data, over 90 trillion emails were sent to 1.4 billion email users worldwide in 2009. About 82% of those messages were spam, and junk mail has increased 24% from last year. The year closed with some 234 million websites -- 47 million were created in 2009.

There were 81.8 million .COM domains, 76.3 million country code top-level domains (.UK for example), and 12.3 million .NET domain names. Web server Nginx exploded by 384.4% last year, while others such as Lighttpd and IIS fell by 72.4% and 22.1%.

As of September 2009 there were 1.73 billion Internet users on the globe, which is an 18% increase from 2008, and Asia accounted for more than North America, Europe and the Middle East combined. There were 126 million blogs, and 84% of social network sites had more women than men -- a valuable piece of info for you single fellas.

The stats continue, and each section is more in-depth than the glimpse I've provided. Do any of the figures surprise you?

We've been hearing about an upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol for years and yet IPv6 is still in its infancy when it comes to deployment. However, with fewer than 10 percent of IPv4 addresses remaining available for allocation it seems as though time has finally come to ramp up adoption.

In a recent statement the Number Resource Organization (NRO) warned that it is vital for the future network operations of all businesses and organizations to step up their migration to IPv6. The replacement addressing system uses a 128-bit address space and can handle trillions of connected devices, whereas -- surprising as it may seem -- IPv4's roughly 4 billion addresses are starting to dry out.

However, where previous estimates had IPv4 addresses running out in 2011, it now appears they are more likely to be depleted in 2012. Many businesses have been putting off the switch because of time and cost constraints, while others maintain that NAT routing reduces the pressure to move to IPv6 and will continue to do so.

Only a handful of companies and government entities have already started supporting the new addressing system. Google went live with IPv6 addresses for some of its properties in March 2009, while the EU began its migration in October. Others on the list include Netflix, Limelight and Comcast.

In a discussion with Broadband Reports, Verizon spokeswoman Bobbi Henson said she was misquoted in a CNET article yesterday, which claimed that the company has disconnected repeat pirates from the Internet. Henson told BBR that she is unaware of Verizon ever terminating anyone's account for excessive consumption, although it reserves the right to discontinue service.

"That part of the CNET story is wrong… I did not say 'we've cut people off'; I said we reserve the right to do so," Henson said. She continued by adding that, "this is not an automatic 'three strikes' graduated response program," and it has not resulted in the termination of any Verizon customer's service. Henson also reiterated that Verizon has no bandwidth caps.

We don't know whether CNET really misreported Henson's words, but pulling the plug on users doesn't seem particularly beneficial to Verizon. The legal repercussions would be an expensive nuisance, and many subscribers would switch to another ISP. It seems more likely that the company relies solely on scare tactics, and not an iron fist. What do you think?

Update: CNET has responded to the fiasco with an article supporting its original piece. From the outside looking in, it seems like Henson either provided CNET with incorrect information or simply divulged too many details. When the site asked Verizon directly if it has ever disconnected anyone from its service for copyright violations, the company declined to comment.

YouTube announced today that it has partnered with the Sundance Film Festival to make life a little easier on independent filmmakers. Between the dates of January 22 (this Friday) and Sunday, January 31, the video sharing site will offer five popular films from the 2010 and 2009 festivals.

Additionally, a small collection of rental videos from other US partners will also be made available in the weeks ahead, and YouTube is calling for more upcoming filmmakers to join the rental program as part of its "Filmmakers Wanted" campaign at the festival.

YouTube acknowledges that it's increasingly difficult to be a small-time filmmaker. Advances in technology have made it easier and cheaper than ever to produce films, and that translates to more competition for viewership, which often means that a boatload of marketing cash is needed -- something the little guy doesn't have.

Content owners can decide how much the videos will cost to rent, and how long they'll be available. Google Checkout will handle the payments to boot, and there is no mention of a price on the first round of videos, but I assume they'll be a bargain.

In addition to warning letters, Verizon spokeswoman Bobbi Henson admitted to CNET that the company has disconnected users who were caught repeatedly pirating media. Henson noted that Verizon reserved the right to discontinue service, and that the company doesn't impose bandwidth caps like Comcast.

While she didn't reveal precisely how many people have been cut off, Henson did say that it was only a small number. She also mentioned that preliminary warnings are generally effective, and the company doesn't usually have to issue a second notice or take any further action. In many cases, it's a teenager downloading music, movies or games and parents take care of it once alerted.

Verizon is the first ISP to publicly acknowledge compliance with the RIAA's new antipiracy strategy. In December 2008 the RIAA said it would stop suing individuals, and would instead notify ISPs of suspected pirates. Internet providers would then issue a warning to the user, and the RIAA encouraged ISPs to interrupt the service of repeat offenders.

In a response to Google's motion to end Web censorship, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the country welcomes global Internet companies -- as long as they obey Chinese law. "The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet," said Yu.

In what reeks of doublethink, Yu continued, "China's Internet is open, and the Chinese government encourages development of the Internet," and that "Chinese law proscribes any form of hacking activity." I'm not sure how one can outwardly acknowledge the presence of forced Web censorship, and then claim that the Internet is open.

It is still unclear whether Google will close its Chinese operation, but things don't bode well for the search giant. Commenting on the situation, Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China, said "Google.cn is toast… Just keep pressing refresh on your browser and see what happens."

Yahoo has responded to Google's move yesterday to end censorship in China after discovering a series of attacks that compromised the accounts of human rights activists. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo said it would back Google's decision.

"We stand aligned that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose," said Yahoo. The company didn't mention whether it was also targeted in the attacks discovered by Google.

It's worth noting that Yahoo sold its Chinese operation to Alibaba.com in 2005, but maintains a 39% financial stake in the company. Microsoft launched a Chinese version of Bing last June, and said there is no indication that any of its mail properties have been compromised.

In response to a series of cyber attacks, Google has announced that it will stop censoring search results in China -- and if the Chinese government doesn't like it, Google will exit the market.

In mid-December, the company discovered a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on its corporate infrastructure that originated from China, and the attackers made off with intellectual property of Google's. Upon further investigation however, it became evident that many other companies were similarly targeted, ranging such industries as finance, technology, Internet, media, and chemical.

Google believes the purpose of the attacks was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists -- a goal that was largely unmet. The search giant notes that only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to things such as the date the account was created, rather than the content of its emails.

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Google today announced that it would roll out a new storage feature for Google Docs. The service will enable users to "upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs," allowing users to access their data from any Web-connected computer. The idea is far from new of course, but a useful implementation nonetheless given the popularity of Google Docs and the search giant's other services.

Users will have the ability to upload any file up to 250MB, with a total of 1GB of free storage for files that aren't of the Google Docs format. Beyond that, Google will offer additional space for $0.25 per GB per year. Shared folders can be used for the organization and collaboration of files, while a search function and the Google Docs viewer should help with finding recently uploaded or shared files.

Google will gradually introduce the service to accounts over the next couple of weeks, and the company welcomes all feedback.

This was a great year for uTorrent, an increasingly popular, lightweight BitTorrent client. The software's user-base has climbed to 52 million uniques per month from 28 million last November, which is contrary to some frequently cited numbers floating around the Web, according to TorrentFreak.

Reports earlier this year suggested that of all Internet traffic, the portion consumed by P2P has declined, indicating the slow "death" of BitTorrent, but that might not be right. TorrentFreak and others say that when looked at more closely, P2P activity has risen -- though, streaming sites like YouTube and Hulu are growing a little faster.

Despite legal troubles faced by sites like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and isoHunt, torrent outfits across the board have seen an increase in visitors over the past months. Simon Morris, BitTorrent's VP of Product Management said this growth is reflected in the usage stats of uTorrent.

"We see no evidence whatever that BitTorrent clients are any less popular," Morris said. BitTorrent Mainline, another client, rose from 5 million users at the start of 2009 to 10 million in November -- a similar growth rate to uTorrent.

According to new data from StatCounter, Mozilla's Firefox version 3.5 has successfully trounced Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 in the global browser market. As of last week, Firefox 3.5 claimed 21.93% of the market, edging past IE7's 21.2% share. That said, Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 still collectively hold over 55% of the pie.

Meanwhile, Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 make up 1.01% and 9.01% of browser usage, Safari and Opera represent 3.03% and 0.42%. "Other" browsers account for 9.19% of the market -- much of which is presumably Google Chrome.


If you're wondering why these shares look pretty different from previously reported figures, it's because we usually cite Net Applications' research. StatCounter's accuracy is certainly open for interpretation, but it's still interesting to compare data between firms.

Google is reportedly in closing negotiations to buy Yelp, the local business review site founded in 2004 by two PayPal veterans. An acquisition price has not been disclosed, but sources close to the deal said it is more than $500 million.

Some sources have expressed uncertainty as to why Google would purchase Yelp since it already provides search and review systems within Google Maps, but Yelp has more (and broader) local data. The search giant could undoubtedly benefit by melding Yelp's content and audience with its own Web products, all the way down to its Google Maps Navigation Android app.

Yelp will supposedly post around $30 million in revenue for 2009, with estimates as high as $50 million for 2010. The business had a $200 million valuation during its last round of venture capital funding in early 2008, but its worth has probably increased since.

YouTube has released a list of stats showing this year's most viewed videos and fastest rising search terms. Unsurprisingly, Susan Boyle's Britain's Got Talent audition topped the most watched with over 120 million views.

"David After Dentist" trailed with over 37 million views, the "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" had more than 33 million views, the New Moon movie trailer scored 31 million, and "Evian Roller Babies" was watched over 27 million times. Meanwhile, Pitbull "I Know You Want Me" was reportedly the most popular music video with more than 82 million views.

YouTube broke down the most popular US and global search terms by month, and a table with that information is included after the jump. It's also worth noting that YouTube plans to expand these lists in the future, so if you'd like to see a specific "most watched" category, tell them about it in the comments here.

Hot on the heels of Facebook's URL-shortening service FB.me, Google has introduced its own link trimmer. Dubbed Goo.gl, Google's shortener is not available through a standalone site, as with similar services like TinyURL and Bit.ly. Instead, the search giant has incorporated Goo.gl into the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner.

As with any of its products, Google has put an emphasis on speed and reliability. The company boasts that Goo.gl uses its scalable, multi-datacenter infrastructure to provide great uptime. Goo.gl is also secure, as it automatically checks shortened URLs for malicious sites and tips users off. While Google already believes its service is quick, the company says it will continue to improve Goo.gl's speed.

If you happen to use the Google Toolbar or FeedBurner and frequently rely on URL shrinking services, take Goo.gl for a spin and let us know what you think.

Amazon is offering a new service called Disc+ On Demand that lets customers watch some video titles immediately after purchasing them on DVD or Blu-ray. This improves one of the only remaining benefits of buying videos at Best Buy (who is also exploring on-demand content) and other chains: instant gratification. Waiting a week to watch your new Blu-ray film is a bummer. Disc+ On Demand also adds appeal to the dying physical media.


Over 300 movies and TV shows are currently available with the promotion, and users can stream the videos on their PC or Mac computers, as well as some TVs and set-top boxes from Roku, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, and TiVo. When a participating DVD or Blu-ray is purchased, the digital version is directly listed under the buyer's video library.

Besides the limited content selection, there are a couple of things to point out: the on-demand videos only stream in standard-definition, and the promotion is only available to US customers.

Vevo, the online music video website powered by YouTube and major labels like Universal Music Group (UMG), has officially launched. The site currently contains 14,675 videos from 5,191 artists spread across more than 20 genres. Users are gradually taking to the site, with over 800 playlists already created.

YouTube and UMG first announced plans for Vevo in April, and the site has since gained other labels and partners including Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, AT&T, and Abu Dhabi Media Company, who contributed a reported $300 million to the project. CBS Interactive climbed aboard earlier this month, bringing with it Last.fm and more than 90 CBS Radio music stations, which should be available next year.


The collaborators envision Vevo as a premium music video hub, where users can create and share playlists and more. Instead of simply distributing music videos, Vevo intends to help "sell" artists with profile pages featuring interviews and other promotional content. You can login to the service here, and share your impressions in the comments.

Slightly under a year after launch, "Offline Gmail" has matured beyond Google Labs and is now a standard Gmail feature. Google made the announcement yesterday, posting instructions to enable the tool and highlighting some of its features.

Offline Gmail has seen several recent feature additions like offline attachments and "Flaky Connection Mode" that serve to make it a true "offline" application. It is possible to read and reply to messages without an active Internet connection, similar to standalone email programs. Existing users of Offline Gmail don't have to make any changes, Google will enable it by default. Anyone else who wishes to use the feature can now find it inside Gmail proper.

Future offline web-apps from Google may not be based on Gears, HTML5 becoming favored by developers. Google's efforts toward HTML5 standardization will give them an advantage in developing offline apps -- though, hopefully they will work to provide migration paths for Gears-based software.

Last week marked the five-year anniversary of popular news website Digg. A cross between social networking and news, the site fills a niche role allowing users to decide what sort of content is worth viewing. Launched as an experiment in November 2004, it was met with explosive growth and has continued to expand. It is now a large part of the modern web, and has a huge impact on news sites around the world.

Digg's success hasn't come from nothing. The site has overcome failed partnerships, buyout rumors and companies attempting to use its system for their own advantage. Those obstacles have not dented Digg's mounting popularity, and it should be around for years to come. The site is nearing profitability, its traffic has nearly doubled since August 2008, and it reportedly sees click-through rates up to 100 times more than standard display advertising.

For more information on what Digg has accomplished, take a look at TechRadar's brief history of the site.

Earlier this year, after a failed merger attempt and months of back and forth negotiations, Microsoft and Yahoo officially announced a search deal intended to help them compete more effectively with Google. The companies had hoped to have the details worked out by late October, and after a brief delay they've now "finalized and executed the definitive Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and License Agreement."

Under the 10-year deal, Microsoft's Bing search engine will power Yahoo's search results maintaining its own interface but featuring the "Powered by Bing' branding. In return, Yahoo will provide premium search-advertising services for both companies and keep 88% of the revenue generated on its properties for the first five years. For the remaining period the company would retain 93% of revenue earned.

Although apparently no upfront payment will be made, Yahoo is counting on the deal to help it significantly cut costs, while Microsoft sees it as an opportunity to increase its web search market share. The partnership is still being reviewed by antitrust regulators but the companies hope it will close in early 2010.

As expected, Comcast announced its buyout of NBC Universal today, a deal that has left many wondering what will happen to Hulu, the ad-driven TV and movie streaming site. According to Comcast COO Stephen Burke the answer is: not much. Burke referred to Hulu's existing business model as "smart and appropriate" and said there aren't any plans to change the site.

Burke noted that NBC has been "careful not to put too much cable content on the Internet." Comcast CEO Brian Roberts emphasized further that Comcast has no intent to "crush [Hulu] like a bug." It's worth mentioning that NBCU is only one of two other studios (ABC and Fox) with a stake in Hulu, so it can't determine the site's fate outright. Roberts also said that a Hulu subscription model isn't in the cards -- but time will tell.

As reported yesterday, under the agreement, NBCU will be owned 51% by Comcast and 49% by GE. The deal is subject to closing conditions, and could take a year or longer before completion. Read Comcast's rundown of the transaction here, and a great interview conducted by All Things Digital here.

From the start, Google's simplicity has been one of their more attractive attributes. Keeping in tune with that, the company has redesigned their homepage to make it more basic in appearance, hiding everything on the page excluding the logo, search box and search buttons. All of the additional buttons will re-appear if the mouse is moved over the page, quickly fading in to view.

The intention is to create a more minimalistic approach for the most commonly used Google function: search. Comments on Google's blog indicated they tried several approaches to slimming down their homepage, but the fade-in was selected among a handful of others as the least distracting.

The initial success of Google's search page was influenced by its lightweight approach. Clearly, they wish to continue that tradition with this change.

Social networking giant Facebook reached a new milestone this week, surpassing 350 million registered users. Founder Mark Zuckerberg noted the occasion in a blog update, where he outlined how his company achieved that number and where it is going from here.

Zuckerberg also used the time to address concerns about changes to Facebook's privacy policies. A major change will be the nature of networks, where regional networks are disbanded and users are presented with more confirmations on what information is exposed. Other privacy options will be simplified by combining many actions.

In the same breath, Facebook also shut down nearly 3,500 accounts in cooperation with law enforcement to remove Internet predators from the site. Facebook has made a public effort to keep the site clean from criminals for some time, but the sheer size of the site may make that increasingly difficult.

It's been more than two years since Google launched Gears in an effort to bring offline capabilities to web-based applications. But after the initial excitement over the browser extension and subsequent inclusion in Chrome, it looks like the search giant is scaling back support for the tool.

Now that a beta of Google's Chrome browser is becoming available for Mac sans Gears support, and Apple's Snow Leopard doesn't play nicely with the functionality even months after release, a company spokesman has come forward to shed some light into the matter. While there was no formal abandonment of the project, it's clear that in Google's view HTML 5 is the future.

The next version of the web programming language isn't even finished yet, but it should support many of the same features in Gears, allowing users to take online data offline. According to Google, Gears will continue to be supported for sites that already use it, but they expect developers to use HTML 5 for adding offline capabilities moving forward as it's a standards-based approach that will be available across all browsers and operating systems.

The convenience of online shopping is drawing more customers away from traditional stores, with an 11% increase in online Black Friday spending this year. That figure is ahead of the market as a whole, which rose 3%. Amazon leads the pack in those online sales, gaining 28% year-over-year.

ComScore cited increased reliance on social networking and "creative promotions" as some reasons for the growth -- and the firm doesn't believe it will stop, either. Cyber Monday also saw large increases over last year, and comScore says things look encouraging for online retailers. Companies that have both a retail and online presence did well, with Walmart, Target and Best Buy all gaining.

If consumers continue to opt for Web-based shopping, will we see the end of midnight or early morning sales at brick-and-mortar stores?

According to comScore's latest data, Hulu served a record number of videos in October. Views totaled 856 million in the US last month, a 47% increase from September, giving Hulu 3.1% of the Internet video market share. Hulu's traffic surge is credited to the fall TV season as well as the addition of ABC shows through its deal with Disney. The site now features full-length TV shows from three of the top four American studios, including hits like Lost.

Despite its substantial growth, Hulu still trailed behind Google, which reportedly served over 10.5 billion videos last month, accounting for 37.7% the total Web videos watched. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Fox and Viacom each took between 1.5 and 1.6% of the pie with 407,205 to 450,957 views. Yahoo held a 1.2% share with 338,035 videos served, and Turner took 1.0%, delivering 288,070 videos. CBS and Facebook were each attributed with 0.9% of the market, and ABC represented only 0.7% of all the Internet videos watched in October.