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<title>Haaze.com / catwhitenet / All</title>
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<pubDate>Wed, 18 May 2011 07:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Like/Dislike cufflinks a Facebook fashion statement]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=likedislike-cufflinks-a-facebook-fashion-statement</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=likedislike-cufflinks-a-facebook-fashion-statement</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 18 May 2011 07:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=likedislike-cufflinks-a-facebook-fashion-statement</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The number of folks who like Facebook's &quot;Like&quot; function is becoming one of the strangest meta-memes of the year. Earlier this week an Israeli couple  named their newborn daughter &quot;Like&quot; after the world's most recognizable thumb, and now I've discovered an ancillary trend--&quot;Like&quot; as a fashion accessory.(Credit:Screen Capture by Eric Mack/CNET)Cufflinks, Inc., offers this pair of spiffyLike/Dislike links for those of us who have let social-networking addictions spill over into all facets of life. Just be careful to always put the &quot;Like&quot; link on your primary handshaking wrist, especially when meeting her dad for the first time.Then again, if you're out to flaunt a little more attitude but still fly the Zuckerberg flag, try the &quot;f me&quot; design shown below.(Credit:Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)The links cost 50 bucks a pair, and because you're all about instant gratification, the company even promises to ship them out the same day, if you order before 3 p.m.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[RIM's PlayBook will run Android apps]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rims-playbook-will-run-android-apps</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rims-playbook-will-run-android-apps</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rims-playbook-will-run-android-apps</guid>
<description><![CDATA[RIM&amp;39's BlackBerry PlayBook will also run Android 2.3 apps.(Credit:James Martin/CNET)So the rumors were true: Research In Motion announced today it will allow Android apps on its yet-to-be-releasedtablet, the PlayBook.The forthcoming tablet will have &quot;app players&quot; that will run BlackBerry apps created in Java, and apps created for Android 2.3.Having the option of downloading Android apps on BlackBerry App World &quot;will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will also showcase the versatility of the platform,&quot; Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of RIM, said in a statement. For developers working on apps, RIM says a &quot;high degree of API compatibility&quot; makes it easy to port BlackBerry Java and Android apps to the BlackBerry Tablet OS that will run on the PlayBook.Word began to spread that RIM was thinking of allowing Android apps on its tablet starting in January. Many dismissed it because RIM had spent a lot of money to buy QNX, which makes the software on which the BlackBerry Tablet OS is built, and because it had done so much work with its own BlackBerry developer community.RIM announced a 32 percent increase in quarterly earnings today, but warned of weakness in the coming quarter.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Study: Negligence cause of most data breaches]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-negligence-cause-of-most-data-breaches</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-negligence-cause-of-most-data-breaches</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:10:49 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-negligence-cause-of-most-data-breaches</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Breach costs and ranking by type of breach, 2009 and 2010.(Credit:Ponemon/Symantec) Negligence is the biggest cause of data breaches at corporations, but criminal attacks are growing fastest, a study released today concludes.  The average cost of a data breach for a victimized organization increased to $7.2 million, and the average cost per record came to $214, up $10 from the previous year, according to the 2010 Annual Study: U.S. Cost of a Data Breach, which was conducted by the Ponemon Institute and based on data supplied by 51 U.S. companies across 15 different industry sectors.  The costs associated with a breach involve detecting the incident, investigation, forensics, customer notification, paying for identity-protection services for victims, business disruption, and productivity losses, said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. A record can contain only one piece of information on an individual or multiple pieces of data, including social security number, contact information, driver's license number, purchasing habits, and account number, he said. Malicious or criminal attacks are the most expensive and make up the fastest-growing category, with 31 percent of all breaches involving malice or crime. Negligence was the most common threat, with 41 percent of all breaches, according to the study, which was sponsored by Symantec. The most expensive breach reported in the study was $35.3 million, and the least expensive was $780,000.  The companies have devised an online Data Breach Calculator for helping estimate how likely a breach is and how much a breach would cost based on an organization's size, industry, location, and security practices. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Researchers turn USB cable into attack tool]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=researchers-turn-usb-cable-into-attack-tool</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=researchers-turn-usb-cable-into-attack-tool</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=researchers-turn-usb-cable-into-attack-tool</guid>
<description><![CDATA[George Mason researchers demonstrate how to take control of a laptop via a USB-connected smartphone at the Black Hat DC conference.(Credit:Angelos Stavrou)Two researchers have figured out a way to attack laptops and smartphones through an innocent-looking USB cable.  Angelos Stavrou, an assistant professor of computer science at George Mason University, and student Zhaohui Wang wrote software that changes the functionality of the USB driver so that they could launch a surreptitious attack while someone is charging a smartphone or syncing data between a smartphone and a computer. Basically, the exploit works by adding keyboard or mouse functionality to the connection so an attacker can then start typing commands or click the mouse in order to steal files, download additional malware, or do other things to take control of the computer, Stavrou told CNET in an interview. The exploit is enabled because the USB protocol can be used to connect any device to a computing platform without authentication, he said. He and his partner were scheduled to demonstrate an attack at the Black Hat DC conference today. The exploit software they wrote identifies what operating sysetm is running on the device the USB cable is connected to. On Macintosh and Windows machines, a message pops up saying the system has detected a new human interface device, but there is no easily recognizable way to halt the process, Stavrou said. TheMac pop-up can be quickly removed by an attacker with a command sent via the smartphone so the laptop owner may not even see it, while the Windows pop-up lasts only one or two seconds in the lower left corner, making that an ineffective warning too, he said. Linux machines offer no warning, so users will have no idea that something out of the ordinary is happening, particularly since the regular keyboard and mouse continue to function normally during an attack, Stavrou said.  &quot;The operating system should present a pop-up and ask if the user really wants to connect the device&quot; and specify what type of device is being identified to the system, he said. The researchers wrote the exploit for Android devices only at this point. &quot;It can be done foriPhone, but we didn't do it yet,&quot; Stavrou said. &quot;It can work on any computing device that uses USB,&quot; and it can work between two smartphones by connecting a USB cable between then, he said. &quot;Say your computer at home is compromised and you compromise your Android phone by connecting them,&quot; he said. &quot;Then, whenever you connect the smartphone to another laptop or computing device I can take over that computer also, and then compromise other computers off that Android. It's a viral type of compromise using the USB cable.&quot; The original compromise can happen by downloading the exploit from the Web or running an app that is compromised. The researchers have created exploit software to run on a computer, and an exploit to run on Android that is a modification of the Android operating system kernel. Scripts can then be written for the actual attack. Antivirus software wouldn't necessarily stop this because it can't tell that the activities of the exploit are not controlled or sanctioned by the user, Stavrou said. &quot;It's hard to separate good behavior from bad behavior when it comes from the keyboard,&quot; he said. There's not much a person can do to protect against this at this time, according to Stavrou. The operating systems should have the capability for devices to inspect USB traffic and alert users about what exactly is happening over the connection and give them the option of refusing an action, he said.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: On Windows Phone 7's upcoming speed boost]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-on-windows-phone-7s-upcoming-speed-boost</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-on-windows-phone-7s-upcoming-speed-boost</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-on-windows-phone-7s-upcoming-speed-boost</guid>
<description><![CDATA[LAS VEGAS--Despite not announcing any new phone hardware during its CES keynote speech, Microsoft paid special attention to itsWindows Phone 7 platform with some live demos of existing features, as well as the promise of an update that would bring new features like copy and paste along with performance improvements.But how much of a boost will phones be getting when firing up applications The answer, it turns out, is hard to quantify. &quot;It impacts apps differently,&quot; Aaron Woodman, director of Microsoft's mobile communications business, told CNET in an interview yesterday. &quot;It's not the same percentage of improvement, primarily because what we've done is modify how memory is loaded. So more graphic intense, front-loading applications like games are going to benefit a great deal more from the change in architecture, than a text-driven application,&quot; Woodman said.&quot;The example I always use is Flixster, which actually loads up really quick today,&quot; Woodman said. With the new version of the Windows Phone 7 software, which the company plans to release sometime in the next few months as a free update, Woodman explained there was, in fact, a performance improvement. But because the app grabs all its data off the Web, it's hard to tell if there's been a boost. &quot;There is a performance improvement, but you just don't notice it,&quot; he said.(Credit:Microsoft)Where some of the biggest changes can be seen are on games, Woodman explained. &quot;All apps will get better. Some apps will get incrementally better, games will get a lot better, and some games will get exponentially better,&quot; he said. The demo we got in the interview was Popcap's Bejeweled, currently one of the top sellers on the platform. Side by side on identical development hardware, which was slightly slower than what's in the hands of consumers at the moment, the phone with the newer software easily bested the older one. &quot;The difference is pretty dramatic between the two, it's anywhere from 15 to 20 seconds in difference, and that's dramatic for us,&quot; said Woodman. Most importantly though, Woodman pointed out that the change in how apps will be loaded doesn't require any changes to existing application coding. &quot;The person who wrote Bejeweled doesn't need to do jack to get any sort of performance improvement,&quot; he said.Microsoft remains conservative in offering up any details on a release date for this first update. Part of that is due to the company treading new ground in a multistage update process that begins with Microsoft first finalizing its phone software before aggregating software from its hardware partners. Microsoft then tests how the updates will go out to those devices, both through Microsoft's software updating process, and through the carriers. &quot;That last piece is unique, and new and unknown to us, because we want it to be great, and perfect and we've never done it before,&quot; Woodman said. &quot;Update is one of those things you can't screw up. We have extremely high product satisfaction, and you can lose it in a second by hosing people's data in any incremental percentage, so it's a big deal.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Skype acquires Qik, expands into live video]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=skype-acquires-qik-expands-into-live-video</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=skype-acquires-qik-expands-into-live-video</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=skype-acquires-qik-expands-into-live-video</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Internet calling firm Skype said today it has acquired real-time video startup Qik for an undisclosed price. Rumors have pegged the deal at $100 million.Tony Bates, chief executive of Skype, announced the deal today at a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He said the Qik service, which offers live broadcasting to the web, is a complement to Skype&amp;'s video calling service and that Skype wants to move into both intimate and everyday communications experiences. He declined to comment on the rumored price or the integration plans.Bates has been CEO for just 70 days. During that time, in December, Skype had a serious full-day outage, resulting in a loss of service for tens of millions of its users. Bates apologized again for that incident, said the company did a full post-mortem on it and shared the details on the web, and offered compensation of free minutes to its users. Skype to Skype calls are free on the internet, but Skype makes money by charging a fee if you make a Skype call to someone with standard phone service.According to market researcher TeleGeography, Skype is now the largest international calling provider, accounting for 25 percent of all the world&amp;'s international calling minutes in 2010, up from 12 percent in 2009 and 8 percent in 2008. Bates said that Qik has a large user base and is growing but declined to say how big it is.Skype has filed for an initial public offering. Per regulatory rules, Bates said he could not talk about financial projections. He said that Skype generates 520 million minutes a day in call time and 190 billion minutes a year. On New Year&amp;'s Eve, Skype saw four million downloads and 1 million video calls, as lots of people like to call their loved ones on holidays.Next Story: T-Mobile to double its 4G network speed to 42Mbps in 2011 Previous Story: Verizon&amp;'s broadband service reaches as high as 150 megabits a secondPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: Qik, SkypePeople: Tony Bates          Companies: Qik, SkypePeople: Tony BatesDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[ZocDoc: I Hope You Are Not Too Good to Be&nbsp'True]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=zocdoc-i-hope-you-are-not-too-good-to-benbsptrue</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=zocdoc-i-hope-you-are-not-too-good-to-benbsptrue</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=zocdoc-i-hope-you-are-not-too-good-to-benbsptrue</guid>
<description><![CDATA[I&amp;'ve always thought ZocDoc is a great idea in theory, but somehow until today I had never actually tried to use it. There is something about a lifetime of calling for doctor&amp;'s appointments, waiting on hold, being told I can&amp;'t come in for a week even though I have a fever now, and searching through a health insurance booklet to find another doctor that has convinced me on some deep, visceral level that booking a doctor&amp;'s appointment can&amp;'t be as easy as, say, booking a flight, a rental car or a table online.Guess what It&amp;'s actually easier. For the first time in my life, I&amp;'m thinking it&amp;'s a shame I don&amp;'t go to the doctor more often.Within minutes, and after entering a bare minimum of data, I found a doctor near me, read some quick reviews of him and made an appointment for tomorrow morning. Thirty minutes later, I got a call from the doctor asking if they could move my appointment a bit later in the day. No big deal, I said. I&amp;'ll still feel lousy in the afternoon. An hour or so after that, I got another exceedingly friendly call from ZocDoc apologizing that the doctor had to move my appointment and offering me a $20 Amazon gift card for the &amp;''hassle&amp;'' of having to answer two exceedingly friendly phone calls about the appointment. The operator swore that this had nothing to do with the fact that I&amp;'ve written about the company before, and that it&amp;'s standard procedure if there&amp;'s an inconvenience or glitch in the booking system.There are just so many great things about that. First off, ZocDoc clearly isn&amp;'t just catering its service to the doctors that pay its bills, it is catering to the patients too. So few Web companies do both well, because frequently the interests of a &amp;''buyer&amp;'' or &amp;''seller&amp;'' (for lack of more broadly appropriate nouns) are at odds, especially when you are talking about a service that books reservations without a credit card authorization. The seller doesn&amp;'t want to turn away business and have a buyer flake, but the buyer is booking online because they don&amp;'t want to have to jump through hoops to make a reservation.There&amp;'s a strong temptation to make things harder for the buyer, since the seller is the one putting the perishable time-slot at risk. But that&amp;'s a short term gain, if an annoyed buyer doesn&amp;'t come back. Especially when it comes to something you (hopefully) don&amp;'t do all the time like making doctors&amp;' appointments. The impression needs to be a strongly positive one, because so little healthcare is electronic and it&amp;'s such a change in how we interact with doctors. There&amp;'s a natural trepidation against doing things differently when it involves something like your health.But beyond that, so many engineering-centric Web companies are content to take an annoying offline process, put it online and just hope that the sheer convenience keeps people coming back. They stop short of a full-on Zappos-like assault of friendly customer service, because things like US-based call centers are expensive.a4sIt&amp;'s so nice to use a service and not have anything to complain about&amp;8211' especially when the consumers of that service are probably at their sickest and crankiest when they call.ZocDoc launched at TechCrunch40 and has rolled out slowly, operating in only four markets to date: New York, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco and Dallas. They recently raised $15 million from Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures, and are planning to expand by another handful of cities this year, including Los Angeles, Boston and Houston. The company is clearly taking the time to get each market right, and it shows. If you&amp;'re not in one of those markets, trust me, the wait will be worth it.CrunchBase InformationZoc DocInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[On the GreenBeat: Hara announces Abu Dhabi deal, ethanol braces for subsidy cuts]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-the-greenbeat-hara-announces-abu-dhabi-deal-ethanol-braces-for-subsidy-cuts</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-the-greenbeat-hara-announces-abu-dhabi-deal-ethanol-braces-for-subsidy-cuts</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-the-greenbeat-hara-announces-abu-dhabi-deal-ethanol-braces-for-subsidy-cuts</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Here are the stories we&amp;'re following today on the GreenBeat:The U.S. ethanol industry is bracing for subsidy cuts &amp;8212' Ethanol subsidies that offer tax credits to fuel blenders and place tariffs on imported ethanol are due to expire at the end of this year. Analysts say that Congressional renewal of such subsidies will be difficult and that there would likely be an immediate drop of 10 to 15 percent in ethanol production if the measures do not pass, Reuters reports. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla writes on Greentech Media that it&amp;'s &amp;''time to move on&amp;'' from subsidizing ethanol, arguing that biofuels have evolved to the point where they are becoming cost competitive with oil.Hara gets bit deal with United Arab Emirates &amp;8212' In a multi-year, multimillion-dollar deal, the energy efficiency software company expects to save the state-run Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority $3 billion over 10 years. Hara also estimates that its peak demand reductions will allow for the deferred construction of several 500-megawatt conventional natural gas power plants and net energy savings of over 12,000 gigawatt-hours by 2020.Alstom will fund Codexis and CO2 Solution&amp;'s carbon capture research &amp;8211' Power and transportation conglomerate Alstom will help fund the joint effort, in which biofuels company Codexis took a 16.6 percent stake in CO2 Solutions for $2 million last year. The two companies are working on carbonic anhydrase enzymes, which have shown promise in decreasing the costs of capturing carbon in coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg reports.DOE funds french smart grid demonstration project - French conglomerate Alstom was one of five chosen for $6 million in federal funding that will optimize the U.S. electrical grid with smart grid technologies. The Alstom Grid is designed to integrate distributed energy and renewable energy into the grid, Power-Gen Worldwide reports.Cleantech blog names the best and worst green investors  &amp;8212' The list names CMEA, Bayard Capital and CalPERS among the top. CMEA backed the risky Solyndra venture and is also behind some top cleantech IPOs in recent memory, like A123 and Codexis. On the blacklist: cellulostic ethanol investors as well as Advanced Equities and Kleiner Perkins.[Image from Flickr/La Grande Farmer's Market]Next Story: Juniper Networks picks up Altor Networks to bring security to the cloud Previous Story: The hottest enterprise IT trend youa4a4ve never heard ofPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: biofuels, carbon capture, energy efficiency, ethanolCompanies: A123, Advanced Equities, Alstom, Bayard Capital, CalPERS, CMEA, CO2 Solutions, Codexis, Hara, Kleiner Perkins, SolyndraPeople: Vinod Khosla          Tags: biofuels, carbon capture, energy efficiency, ethanolCompanies: A123, Advanced Equities, Alstom, Bayard Capital, CalPERS, CMEA, CO2 Solutions, Codexis, Hara, Kleiner Perkins, SolyndraPeople: Vinod KhoslaIris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you  pronounce her last name).VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[How precious is Twitter $2.5 billion to $4 billion, according to rumors]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-precious-is-twitter-2-5-billion-to-4-billion-according-to-rumors</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-precious-is-twitter-2-5-billion-to-4-billion-according-to-rumors</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-precious-is-twitter-2-5-billion-to-4-billion-according-to-rumors</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Only in the bubble of Twitter-obsessed San Francisco would a buyout offer of $2.5 billion seem &amp;''insulting.&amp;''Yet that is reportedly how executives at the microblogging startup saw an informal offer from Google and a larger offer of $4 billion from another bidder earlier this year.There remains a strong element of twee in Twitter, the San Francisco-based microblogging startup. Despite its increasing reach with 175 million users, it still cultivates the quirky spirit of cofounders Ev Williams and Biz Stone as it casts about for the kind of powerful revenue machine Google and Facebook have found.Business Insider, which reported the offers, rightly noted that it&amp;'scommon for company executives to talk to each other and float around ideas. In the past, Facebook has fended off some 11 offers earlier in its day, including one from Yahoo for $1 billion.Besides a belief that Twitter is worth more than the price offered &amp;8212' a view perhaps bolstered by the brisk private trade in Twitter&amp;'s shares on the secondary market &amp;8212' it&amp;'s understandable that cofounder Williams and current CEO Dick Costolo may hesitate at the thought of selling to Google. Both had previous ventures, Blogger and FeedBurner respectively, which were bought by Google and then neglected. It&amp;'s hard not to see the same happening even to a property as large as Twitter.And the less said of the notion of a Microsoft-owned Twitter, the better.The rejection of the offers, however informal, are a sign that the company is serious about its future, and isn&amp;'t going to show its cards this quickly. It could be gunning for an initial public offering, though its advertising products would have to gain far more traction for that to be possible. In the meantime, Twitter could easily raise more money at a valuation comparable to the buyout offers it&amp;'s getting.Facebook previously made Twitter an all-stock offer of $500 million in 2008. Disagreement over the value of Facebook&amp;'s shares led to that deal falling apart, and misunderstandings between cofounder Jack Dorsey and Twitter&amp;'s board over that deal and other matters led to his ouster. (He is now the company&amp;'s chairman, a role which has grown more active and less titular since Williams stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Costolo.)Apple also may have made an offer of $700 million, going as far in its due diligence as interviewing some key technical employees, last year, according to unconfirmed reports that were roundly dismissed at the time. Now that Apple has launched its own social network, Ping, and partnered with Twitter, though, those reports of Apple&amp;'s interest make far more sense.Everyone wants in on Twitter&amp;'s precious tweets, it seems. And the price tag keeps rising.Previous Story: Blog plug-in Zemanta scores $3M as it heads towards profitabilityPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: acquisition, buyout, Offer, RumorCompanies: Apple, Google, Microsoft, TwitterPeople: Dick Costolo, Evan Williams          Tags: acquisition, buyout, Offer, RumorCompanies: Apple, Google, Microsoft, TwitterPeople: Dick Costolo, Evan WilliamsSid Yadav is a contributor to VentureBeat. He currently studies computer science and psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He is also the creator of Memiary, a micro-diary utility. You can reach him at sidyadav@gmail.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @sidyadav.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Glam Media hires like crazy, on track to overtake AOL]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=glam-media-hires-like-crazy-on-track-to-overtake-aol</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=glam-media-hires-like-crazy-on-track-to-overtake-aol</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>catwhitenet</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=glam-media-hires-like-crazy-on-track-to-overtake-aol</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Glam Media, the media and advertising company focused on women, said today it is forming a global brand sales team in London to continue its global expansion in online brand advertising.The move means that the company continues to breath down the neck of venerable portal AOL in the race for size in online audience reach.The remarkable thing about Glam is that it has grown from scratch in just seven years and appears poised to catch and overtake media giants that are struggling to keep up with online trends. For years, critics in the industry called Glam&amp;'s model a &amp;''house of cards,&amp;'' but the company just wona4a4t go away. If it does pass AOL &amp;8212' and it is on track to do so by the first half of next year &amp;8212' it will be the fifth largest media company in the U.S. in terms of online audience reach.Glam boasts 91 million uniques in the U.S., or almost double the audience it had a year ago. That compares to AOLa4a4s 104 million, according to September Comscore stats, the most recent available.Wea4a4re also hearing that Glam is on the path to hit $100 million in revenue run rate this quarter, which represents more than 30 percent annual growth &amp;8212' at a time when players like AOL and Yahoo have been shrinking on an annual basis. Glam will also be around break-even this quarter, according to our sources. Of course, Glam&amp;'s revenue remains tiny compared to AOL&amp;'s $3 billion. But AOL is stagnating, and ita4a4s worth asking how Glam has managed to grow its audience reach so that it rivals the behemoth AOL.Its success boils down to two factors. First, Glam has relentlessly pursued a a4Averticala4 strategy. It has focused its efforts on women, which plays well to trends online. People no longer go to single portal sites such as AOL for all their information. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new apps on mobile has only continued this fragmentation. Glam has done well to contract with scores of content producers that target women &amp;8212' namely around fashion, beauty, shopping and home. And by aggregating this content, Glam can package it nicely for advertisers who want to target this demographic. Richard McManus of RRW has some good insight on this strategy, although comments on his write-up point out tensions in Glama4a4s business model of not owning much of the content outright (something wea4a4ve also pointed out).Second, Glam has slogged away at the premium display and brand advertising, even when many other companies, including Yahoo and AOL, appeared to forsake brand advertising in favor of more direct response forms of advertising. Glam has spent its trove of venture capital to invest in sophisticated targeting technology, including its GlamAdapt platform. This platform lets advertisers target readers according to things like age, location and interest, and it also integrates media like mobile, video, social media and more. Last week, it also launchedGlamAdapt Automate, which lets publishers automatically package up the high-end content they think advertisers will pay more for. This improves upon the laborious manual process most publishers use today.Now online advertising is back at record levels, with display ads growing faster than search ads. Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker suggested today that there is a $50 million opportunity in online advertising (see our coverage of her talk) because online ads still haven&amp;'t caught up with the vast amounts of time people are actually spending online. See her chart below.Hence Glama4a4s continued hiring spree to exploit its positioning. The new international sales team announced today will be led by Isabelle Sommet and Candace Droz, Glam said in a statement. This follows significant hiring over the past few months, including ad sales and ad product executives like Chris Murphy from Yahoo, Manuel Ponce De Leon from Google and Lindsey Frankenfield from Technorati.Keep an eye on the Comscore numbers. If Glam stays on pace, it will surpass AOL in reach by first or second quarter next year. If so, it will be No. 5 in reach behind just Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook. Glam also hopes to go public next year or in 2012, wea4a4ve heard. Wereported earlier this year that Glam was preparing for an IPO but we&amp;'re hearing now that it wants to try to get bigger while staying private, and join Zynga and Facebook, which are likely to go public in 2011 or 2012. Regardless, thata4a4s pretty impressive for a company that many skeptics thought wouldna4a4t be able to make it through the recession.Next Story: Vudu movie streaming arrives on the PlayStation Network Previous Story: Twitter adds instant notifications via SMS, push messages on iPhone/iPadPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: brand advertising, display advertising, online advertisingCompanies: aol, glam          Tags: brand advertising, display advertising, online advertisingCompanies: aol, glamMatt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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