Before the holidays, Google made an announcement that they would be slowing down their site review for inclusion in the Google New index. Some saw this as a response to criticism that they were allowing too much spam; others believed it was simply because it was the holiday season. The announcement read as follows:</p> <p>?Hello Google News Publishers,</p> <p>We wanted to let you all know that there will be a slowdown in reviewing sites for inclusion into Google News through the end of the year. If you have recently submitted a site for review, please expect a delay in receiving a response from our team. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we sincerely appreciate your patience.</p> <p>Thanks as always for choosing to make your content discoverable through Google News.</p> <p>Best,</p> <p>Harvey P. and the Google News Team?</p> <p>But, the holiday season is now over and delays continue. In response to a complaint made on Tuesday, Harvey P had this to say,</p> <p>?Currently, we've slowed down our submission review process. Publishers who have submitted their site for inclusion to Google News in the last two months should expect significant delays; however we will send you notification when we do review your site. Please see the thread linked to below for more information and for future updates. We appreciate your patience.?</p> <p>What is unclear is the reason for the continued delays. If it is a backlog issue, then hopefully it will be resolved soon. If not, we could be seeing delays for months.

Last September, the American Farm Bureau sold its fb.com domain to what was then an undisclosed buyer. Then, about two months ago it was revealed that the ?who is? for the domain had been updated to show that who was actually Facebook. At the time, it was thought that the social networking giant was using fb.com as an internal site; although some like TechCrunch and the New York Times speculated that domain was destined to service Facebook email accounts. Today, Mashable told us that the purchase of fb.com cost Facebook a hefty $8.5 million ? 42 times the amount that was paid for Facebook.com. The question is; was it worth it?</p> <p>The question really boils down to what this Facebook email scheme is all about and whether it is an idea that will take off or fall flat. According to Mark Zuckerberg, ?email? is not the right word for the service ? that it is designed to be more of a modern messaging system. ?It?s not email,? he says.</p> <p>Based on what we know so far, the new system will revamp the way we send messages to each other, providing every Facebook user with an email address. Your messages will then be deposited into an inbox. According to a Facebook blog post, Facebook Messages will combine messaging, social inbox, and cross-platform conversation ? all in a way that can be organised by you the way you want them. There will be no subject lines, cc or bcc. (This is why they keep reiterating, ?It?s not email.?)</p> <p>It sounds clever; it could be good for FB business users as well. The new system is expected to be introduced by invitation only over the next few months.

Our news traffic over the last month is up almost 25% from June when you started working for us ? one article actually pushes this up to almost 50%!

Purecontent provided fantastic fresh new content for us on one of our more serious subjects. They worked quickly and efficiently and showed a thorough understanding of the nature of our business, whilst interpreting our copy to become far more consumer friendly and digestible. We will most certainly be asking them to look at our website and web content on future projects.

Search neutrality is a buzz-word bandied around a lot these days as the British Government pushes for search regulation via bans and the American Government looks into regulating Google (and other search engines), saying that the giant has stooped to altering results in order to promote their sites over that of their competitors. But, as the respective governments discuss these issues, what does the public think?</p> <p>In a recent report by Rasmussen, it was shown that the large majority of US Citizens do not want search engine regulation, with 77% of those surveyed stating that they were against government oversight. Only 11% stated that they felt government regulation was necessary; 12% were undecided.</p> <p>The report comes in the wake of a public debate held several months ago with the New York Times editorial board. In the debate, Google was deemed the ?gatekeeper of the internet? and the argument was presented that they held far too much power in their hands, with approximately two-thirds of all searches going through Google. It was also presented that Google keeps its algorithm for determining search results a highly-guarded secret; so manipulation was made easy.</p> <p>On the side of Google?s defence was Marissa Mayer, one of the company?s top executives. According to her argument, engineers were constantly updating the algorithm to stay on top of the 70 million queries Google handles on a daily basis ? making it impossible to manipulate. She also asserted that regulation would work against competition, saying ?Without competition and experimentation between companies, how could the rules keep up??</p> <p>The rules of the internet are changing, even if it is not yet clear who will be writing them.

In an article by the Financial Times, it was reported that the buzz at the Consumer Electronics Show this year was how premium content was set to be the factor which manufacturers will use to set their gadgets apart from the competition. This especially applies to tablets, which are expected to lull in sale for a short period of time before hitting the market hard with a series of affordable new tablets featuring the most-popular operating systems, including Android and Windows 7.</p> <p>?I believe tablets create compelling opportunities for video consumption?, Anthony DiClemente media analyst at Barclays Capital told Financial Times ? remarking that the wide-selection of new tablets will ?expand the amount of time and places a person can consume? content.</p> <p>Tablet devices are also drawing the attention of television companies, especially as they evolve into do-everything gadgets from which a user can search television programming and then take it with them to wherever they are going.</p> <p>Key figures in attendance at the event included Rupert Murdoch, whom FT speculates was there because of News Corp?s upcoming tablet newspaper entitled, ?The Daily? and Jeff Bewkes, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, who was quoted as saying, ?You shouldn?t have to have a PhD as a consumer to be able to figure out how to get this stuff.?</p> <p>Also in attendance was Verizon?s Ian Seidenberg, who talked about the company?s increased download speeds for video ? highlighting an issue which has been of concern for media owners: with all of these gadgets ripe for content, are internet networks strong enough to deliver it?

An interesting turn of events, seeing as how most people communicate on the internet in some form or fashion these days; business analyst Marilyn Tagocon of Manhattan lost her job over a personal blog.<br /> The blog, which was written under a pen name, was a platform to show off her love for writing historical fiction and had nothing to do with the area of business she was in. However, the bosses at JP Morgan didn?t feel that way ? when Tagocon was informed that her blogging might be seen as an infringement of the bank?s personal code of content, she went straight to HR to discuss the issue. There she was told that it was her blog or her job. When she refused to give up her blogging, she was fired.<br /> According to JP Morgan, Tagocon?s blog was in breach of the bank?s policy which disallows employee ?online public speeches?. Ms Tagocon has now filed suit with the Manhattan Supreme Court.<br /> This is not the first incident of its kind; last year, Solomon Lederer was fired from Morgan Stanley after he attempted to set up an offline social network during his commute to work.<br /> The case of Ms Tagocon raises several issues; primarily, what constitutes an ?online public speech?? If her blog was seen as a breach, then what about those 140 character ?speeches? people give on Twitter each day? And what about Facebook ? some people can be quite wordy with their status updates.<br /> With the world turning to online communication as part of their daily activity, the outcome of this case could have serious impact.

On Tuesday, British Telecom was accused of breaching net neutrality by creating a system which would allow its content providers to charge extra for delivering video at faster speeds.<br /> Under the new two-tiered system called ?Content Connect?, ISPs who use BT to deliver their internet service are given the chance to charge content owners for enhanced delivery, or what they are calling ?premium service.? In an interview with the Independent, Jim Killock, a member of Open Rights Group warned that the new service could eventually lead to less choice for customers; with the scheme opening doors for ISPs to ?lock? customers into arrangements; impacting competiveness and making it more difficult for smaller companies to gain a market foothold.<br /> He says,? "The question here is that if ISPs are competing with companies on the internet and are locking their users into content delivery, they are going to damage competition and limit the development of the internet ? that's a danger here," he said. "Some of the services ? particularly bundled services that might get offered ? could be very damaging to competition and customer value."<br /> Mr Killock goes on to say that "small efficient internet companies" which deliver film and TV content particularly could face difficulties. "It could quickly stop being a level playing field," Killock says. "Given that BSkyB are already part of the ISP market, it does not take a lot of imagination to see how that might happen."<br /> According to the Independent, the Government has already indicated that it is prepared to support a two-tiered internet.

This past summer, Frank Eliason, Comcast Corporation?s well-known, rather unorthodox director of customer service digital care, joined Citigroup as their director for social media strategies. To date, this has included the creation of new banking blogs, videos on YouTube, the launch of a Facebook page, and lessons in how best to use Twitter ? the social media platform which gained Eliason national media attention at Comcast.</p> <p>While banks using Twitter are not all that uncommon, most use them solely for marketing purposes. Eliason wants to take that one step further by using the social media platform as a way to respond quickly to upset customers.</p> <p>"It's really about building trust and building rapport [?] the benefits are not about selling. Hopefully, long-term, you create the right customer experience, you will sell," Eliason told Reuters on Monday.</p> <p>As a result of the recent Citigroup financial crisis, the corporation now has only about 1,000 branches in the USA; making it difficult for them to compete in-branch with its rivals. So, to try to remain competitive, Citigroup is taking to the web.<br /> "Citi's going to be an also-ran in terms of branch presence, so it absolutely has to have a digital presence," said Alex Sion, a former Citigroup executive.</p> <p>With Twitter, Citigroup not only hopes to improve its now-tarnished image, but reach the young, wealthy urban professionals it wants as customers.

As part of its year in review, the popular tech and gadgets website TechCrunch announced its Google Analytics figures for 2010 and the findings were not all that surprising, with social media out-ranking RSS feeds as the favoured way for TechCrunch readers to receive their information.<br /> The top 10 referrers included:<br /> 10. News.Google.com<br /> 09. Crunchgear<br /> 08. Stumbleupon<br /> 07. Reddit<br /> 06. Google.com<br /> 05. News.Ycombinator.com<br /> 04. Techmeme<br /> 03. Digg<br /> 02. Facebook<br /> 01. Twitter</p> <p>As you can see, Google Reader appears nowhere on the list ? having only made it to the number 11 spot and seeing a fall of almost 50% from 2009.</p> <p>Drilling further down into the information, the service StumbleUpon was responsible for sending the most new visitors percentage-wise to the TechCrunch site; however, they were also the visitors who stayed for the least amount of time. Other short term visits came from the similar sites Reddit and Digg. When looking for longer visitor times, the leader in this arena was Techmeme, followed by Facebook and Twitter, indicating the important role social media plays in reader sustainability.</p> <p>Over this past year, we have often discussed how the shift to social media as a source of business opportunity has been a slow and reluctant one for many UK businesses. Yet, as with other stories we have published within the last 12 months, the TechCrunch story clearly shows the important role social media plays in the success of online businesses. RSS feeds are dying out, as are the companies that provide them. Tomorrow?s successful business must embrace social media and embrace it soon lest they find themselves on undiscovered soil