Facebook, Google, Plaxo join DataPortability workgroup — lots of hype, even more work to do
In what is at least a brilliantly executed PR move, leading engineers from Google, Facebook and Plaxo have joined the Data Portability Workgroup — an effort by a number of web companies to develop best practices for sharing user data across sites and applications.
Google’s Brad FitzPatrick and Plaxo’s Joseph Smarr — two long-standing advocates of data portability — are joining. More surprising is the addition of Benjamin Ling, a former Googler who recently joined Facebook… Continue Reading
Google’s social network, Orkut, gets facelift
Orkut, Google’s growing social network that gets no love back in the United States, has announced a number of design changes. Before/after shots can be found here.
Orkut continues to show growth in unique visitors, even if its far behind MySpace and Facebook, according to Comscore data released last month (see table after the jump below).
However, Orkut had 38 billion pageviews in July versus Facebook’s 31 billion, notes Techcrunch, again citing Comscore worldwide data.
Could it be that… Continue Reading
Roundup: Skype’s offer, Calacanis, Acoona, Zoho, Bluebet, Tafiti, WikiScanner, more
Here’s the latest action:
Skype trying to buy back customer love — Skype is sending out notes to users saying they’ll get a week’s worth of free service. The San Jose Internet phone company says it has 196 million users and reported earlier this year that it was profitable for the first time. As Jeff Nolan points out, its users now number 3 percent of the world’s population, and only just now profitable?
Jason Calacanis, the scrappy entrepreneur —… Continue Reading