I haven’t been a fan of MySpace primarily because I thought it was like a stew of everything on the web, social network, music site, etc, etc. It’s CEO, Owen Van Natta knows the issues as well and has talked about the recent changes that have been made to draw a clearer image of what MySpace is. In his current email to employees he confirmed another major move within the execs as SVP of product Tom Andrus left MySpace along with Travis Katz. Katz had been a key player in building up its International business as its MD and SVP International. I hope that MySpace gets things framed up to know what it really is after all these years, where it has seen everything from being a leader to trailing Facebook at number two and I almost forgot MySpace changing its logo.
Viadeo has raised $5 Million in its current round of funding. The funding came from investors in France namely; AGF, Ventech to help the LinkedIn and Xing competitor grow further and make acquisitions to do the same. Viadeo is also adopting strategies to build up partnerships with content providers which include Microsoft. This would enable members of Viadeo to access their feeds right from the Windows Live platform. The site has also changed its appearance and the interface is much easier to use. I personally think that Viadeo should concentrate at introducing better features and importantly a business model that helps it stand in a better position against its much settled competitors.
While firms predict a tough time ahead and try to cut short expenses, Twitter is knitting expectations of hitting $140 Million in revenue by 2010. And even more, the micromessaging service will be generating as much as $1.5 Billion in 2013. The news broke forth from TechCrunch who got hold of some documents, worrying Twitter; it is trying to deal with the matter legally and take appropriate actions against anyone who was involved in the theft. We aren’t sure how true this is but anticipate Twitter to be munching both revenue and a substantial boost in the number of users.
Google has pushed the accelerator on location awareness, brining Google Maps to both Firefox and Chrome and today introduced the same for the iPhone on Mobile Web. Users running the iPhone 3.0 software will see beneath their search box a message prompting asking them to try My Location. When clicked, you are prompted if you would want your device to use the service on your device. This removes the need to have a dedicated app and also enables users to have the location service running in Safari in the background. And Google makes sure your privacy is not compromised by not including your location in search results unless you desire it.
While Microsoft would do anything to stay in competition in almost everything, from Bing in search to competing the browser race it has effectively being putting out its Laptop Hunters ads. Apparently those ads are pissing someone off and they are asking them to be put off. that someone according to Microsoft is Apple. Microsoft sprinkled this news during the presentation at the Worldwide Partner Conference today along with the news of its retail stores and the coming of Project Natal to Windows. The ads are pretty successful as they are helping Microsoft as people get aware of the huge price difference. Below is the transcript off the call that Microsoft got from Apple:
