Nicholas Carlson

Yahoo upgraded its local search product today, turning it from a place where users get maps and driving directions to a community-specific portal. “We’re hearing the people want qualitative information from their community and neighbors to make more complex purchasing decisions in their area, so we’re elevating the presence of people in the experience,” Brian […]

Better know who your Facebook friends are. According to a new report from Sophos, an IT security and control firm, 41 percent of Facebook users willingly divulge personal information, such as e-mail addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers to complete strangers. To perform the study, Sophos created a Facebook profile under the name “Freddi […]

Typically, deposed witnesses must swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But what about “truthiness”? The issue could come up, now that Google announced it intends to depose Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, as it defends itself against a billion dollar copyright lawsuit from Viacom. […]

Nobody satisfies its customers more than Yahoo. Not even Google. The University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report, released today, reveals Yahoo beat Google in customer satisfaction 79 to 78. and Google dropped 3.7 percent. Larry Freed, online satisfaction expert and president and CEO of ForeSee Results, which sponsors the ACSI e-business report, […]

Effective August 15, Google Video users will no longer be able to access rented or purchased videos for viewing. Users learned Google planned to shutter its download-to-own/download-to-rent (DTO/DTR) business from an email that went out on Friday. In that email Google described the decision as part of “an effort to improve all Google services According […]

Universal Music Group will make some of its music available without digital rights management (DRM) software, and Best Buy has announced plans to sell it. Through its Digital Music Store, which is powered by RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music, Best Buy will sell Universal’s DRM-free music for the same price customers would pay for DRM-protected music. Customers […]

Starting this week, Google will feature reader comments for the stories on its Google News homepage. But the comments won’t be from ordinary readers. In a blog post to announce the new feature, Google said it will try out a new mechanism for publishing comments from a “special subset” of readers, people or organizations who […]

If it’s true what they say about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, you have to wonder what Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes is buttering Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings up for. You might ask because today Blockbuster Inc. announced it acquired Movielink, calling it “one of the nation’s leading movie download services.” Another […]

Facebook isn’t really the next big thing anymore. It’s the big thing now. The site saw 110 percent more visitors in June 2007 than June 2006, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. The most popular social network out there, MySpace, only grew 30 percent during that time. But there’s mounting evidence that Facebook and its platform are starting […]

First Netflix slashed its prices. Now the company’s under attack from a hacker who found a way to keep the company’s downloaded movies. The hacker claims to have cracked the digital rights-management software encoded in Netflix “Watch Now” movies, enabling those who follow his step-by-step guide to keep the movies indefinitely. In a post on […]

UPDATED: The list of YouTube’s legal foes is growing almost as fast as its popularity. Today, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) joined the Football Associate Premier League’s class action suit against the Google-owned video site, alleging direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and vicarious copyright infringement. The case is pending in a United States […]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos continues to bet that Apple’s iTunes Store is not the end-all be-all of online music despite the 3 billion songs it has sold. He must know something we don’t. Turns out Amazon.com has contributed some money to the completion of Series A financing for AmieStreet.com, a digital music store with a […]