Writers has now a good occasion to make profit. Google launched this week Google Knol, the user-generated encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia. And every author can earn money from his work, depending on the hits of his articles

Google official blog says that “Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects.“, “The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content.”

The main principle of Knol is the “moderated collaboration”, meaning that the readers can suggest changes of a knol and the author will accept it or not. It’s the author’s option to include ads from the AdSense program, and to be paid this way.

It will become Google Knol a better authoritative source than Wikipedia? The fact that the articles will be owned by Google and paid through AdSense tells us that there will be a heaven for spammers (it seems that already Knol articles are better placed than Wikipedia in the Google search results). Also, comment links don’t have rel=nofollow, untill now, at least. It depends on how Google will manage it. On the other hands, the payment of the article will attract more and better authors than Wikipedia.

Anyway, unlike Wikipedia, where the articles are managed and valued by the community, in Google Knol the articles are managed by the authors and valued by the users.

My guess is the next acquisition of Google of Digg will have an important role in Google Knol.

Two very interesting notes from the Knol ToS: “you grant to Google a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free right and license to use, copy, distribute, transmit, modify, create derivative works based on… “, and “you may use Knol to create articles for your business or to promote your lawful products or services that are not otherwise prohibited by our Content Policy or Terms of Service”

The default settings for the articles is set to a Creative Commons license

So, it depends on Google management to become No. 1 in user’s encyclopedia. And, as far as we know Google, it never disappointed.

It’s time for Digg. It has ad agreement with Microsoft, but Google want it. And not for ads, but for its concept and users.

Digg has very specific community of users/members, not invaded yet by commercial reasons. It is made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories, in a social and democratic spirit. Will Google be able to keep the actual structure and spirit of this social community?

Some of the Digg users consider that this is the beginning of the end.

TechCrunch says that Google intends to acquire Digg for $200 million.

It seems that Google is very interested in the Digg voting system and its users. Voting stories up and down is the site’s cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying. Digg will be acuired by Google News, so we can suppose that Digg will be used to bring value to the news, based on the user votes.

Twitter purchased Summize these days, in order to improve the search of the Twitter network, for relevant topics.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts, ranging up to 140 characters long, via SMS, mobile, or Twitter’s web site

Twitter blog confirmed this aquisition: “We’re excited to announce that Twitter has acquired Summize—an extraordinary search tool and an amazing group of engineers. All five Summize engineers will move to San Francisco, CA and take jobs at Twitter, Inc. This is an important step forward in the evolution of Twitter as a service and as a company.”

Summize offers an API so other products and services can filter the constant queue of updates in a variety of ways. The Summize service and API will be merged with our own and integrated under the Twitter brand.

Twitter can connect groups of people in critical situations, and there are a lot of such examples. The American Red Cross uses Twitter to exchange minute-to-minute information about local disasters, including statistics and directions.

Like I said in a previous post, the strategy of a big company like Microsoft to buy a big company like Yahoo!, cannot be based on a simple offer only. It takes into consideration multiple denies of the targeted company, and it can be foresee for several years, even 10 years, if needed. And, of course, it acts on multiple plans, not only on direct or indirect negotiations with Yahoo.

Late Saturday, Yahoo declined Microsoft’s last attempt to buy its online search engine. Carl Icahn is still active in this stage of the Microsoft strategy, trying to attract as many shareholders as possible.

Now, it’s a fight inside Yahoo!, especially between the board and shareholders, that is predicted to end this month, but nobody knows who will be the winner. I hope that the winner will be the Internet users.

(Source)

R.J. Pittman, Director of Search Properties, showed some of the amazing advances Google made in image search, as well as how ads might work to enhance the user experience on image search. “There are over 300 million digital photos created each day,” said Pittman.

Carter Maslan, Director of Local Search Quality, talked about Google Geo products (Maps and Earth and their features) and the fact that they represent a considerable search problem. “Local search is a geographic lens to any place,” said Carter Maslan.

Johanna Wright, Director of Search Quality, emphasized on the search quality and the latest update on web search.

The Official Google Blog says that now Google Health is publicly available, offering to the users a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage their medical records and health information online. Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, noted the challenges of dealing with myriad security and privacy concerns and making different record formats accessible.

Also, Google launched Go for Good campaign with the Cleveland Clinic.

TechCrunch has a very interesting overview with live notes on the presentations made by Google to the press to its headquarters in Mountain View.

Google has no immediate plans to monetize the Google Health site. “We don’t sell the information and we won’t share it unless asked to,“, said Roni Zeiger, a medical doctor and product manager for Google Health.

(See the video of the presentation by Google for their search properties)

So, the next move in the Microsoft’s strategy is now to go on the partnership with Yahoo! (involving Yahoo carrying search advertisements from Microsoft, the Wall Street Journal said today), taking also into account to buy the full companies in the future.

A second battle-front was open by Microsoft through some investors of Yahoo!, especially Carl Icahn.

“Microsoft is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative depending on future developments,” says Microsoft.

Microsoft says that there will be a “major new initiative“ in its search engine technology on May 21.

Dear Mr. Icahn:

We are in receipt of your letter with regard to your intention to seek control of Yahoo!’s board of directors.

Unfortunately, your letter reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal and the diligence with which our board evaluated and responded to that proposal. A fair-minded review of the factual record leads to one conclusion: that Yahoo!’s ten-member board, comprised of nine independent directors along with Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang, remains the best and most qualified group to maximize value for all Yahoo! stockholders.

(See the full Press Release)

John Dvorak makes an overview of the Yahoo’s board:

• Jerry Yang, founder
• Roy Bostock, chairman of the board here and at Northwest Airlines, and director at Morgan Stanley
• Ron Burkle, finance guy and Bill Clinton pal ,expert in supermarkets and board member of Occidental Petroleum Corp
• Eric Hippeau
• Vyomesh Joshi, a VP at Hewlett-Packard Co. from the printing division
• Arthur Kern, the new-media guy
• Robert Kotick, chairman and chief executive of Activision Inc. OK
• Ed Kozel, background in technology as well as finance
• Maggie Wilderotter, connection to Microsoft as a former VP
• Gary Wilson, from Northwest Airlines,

and the Carl Icahn’s new group:

• Carl Icahn
• Lucian Bebchuk, corporate lawyer, expert in corporate governance
• Frank Biondi Jr., former Viacom Inc. executive sits on a lot of boards, including Seagate Technology’s
• John Chapple, little or no hook into Yahoo’s business
• Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner
• Adam Dell, VC and finance guy
• Keith Meister, Icahn’s personal economic hit man
• Edward Meyer, advertising
• Brian Posner
• Robert Shaye, a Hollywood mogul,

concluding that Carl Icahn will try to sell Yahoo! to Microsoft; If he will not succeed, he will bring Yahoo in disaster.

Microsoft researchers has been developing an interesting astronomy application, now as a public beta, allowing you to see pictures from several observatories. The service is free of charge and uses high-resolution images from the world’s best land- and space-based telescopes.

WorldWide Telescope is a rich, Web 2.0 application allowing people to easily explore the night sky through their computers, a compelling astronomical resource for students and lifelong learners, and as a way to make science fun for children.

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. “By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

WorldWide Telescope allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments and stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky. This way, people can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums.

“WorldWide Telescope brings to life a dream that many of us in Microsoft Research have pursued for years, and we are proud to release this as a free service to anyone who wants to explore the universe,” said Curtis Wong, manager of Microsoft’s Next Media Research Group. “Where is Saturn in the sky, in relation to the moon? Does the Milky Way really have a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy? With the universe at your fingertips, you can discover the answers for yourself.”

WWT uses images provided by Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope and many other observatories. It is possible to view the locations of planets in the night sky in the past, present or future, or the universe through different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in other parts of the galaxy.

Download WorldWide Telescope

Press Release

I had 5 web hosting packages with Dreamhost, all of it including a free registration of a domain name. But they do not say the person that will be the registrant, and this way you will see later that it is not you the registrant, but Dreamhost, and they can whatever they want with those domain names.

See, for ex., the domain names that I registered with them:

eye-tracking.info:

Registrant Name:Nicolae Sfetcu
Created On:23-Nov-2004 20:42:50 UTC
Last Updated On:15-Nov-2007 14:31:02 UTC
Expiration Date:23-Nov-2008 20:42:50 UTC

adreviews.net (for this domain name, for ex., all the 16 subdomains, as well as the domain, were in top in Yahoo SERP, most of it #1 and the other within the first 5 positions, for there main keywords, and it were very searched keywords):

Registrant Contact: Nicolae Sfetcu
Record created on 2004-11-17 13:40:13.
Record expires on 2008-11-17 13:40:13.

insurance-car-auto.com:

Registrant Contact: Nicolae Sfetcu
Record created on 2006-07-05 11:54:21.
Record expires on 2008-07-05 11:54:21.

musicsonglyrics.org:

Registrant Name:musicsonglyrics.org Private Registrant
Registrant Email: musicsonglyrics.org@proxy.dreamhost.com
Created On:29-Jun-2006 17:55:50 UTC
Last Updated On:25-May-2007 08:20:08 UTC
Expiration Date:29-Jun-2008 17:55:50 UTC

rent-sell-buy.net:

Registrant Contact: Nicolae Sfetcu
Record created on 2006-07-01 14:35:53.
Record expires on 2008-07-01 14:35:53.

As you can see from the above info, it is possible that, depending on criterions known by Dreamhost only, to have the domain names that you paid for, registered not with you as registrant, but with Dreamhost as registrant. More than this, the registrant email is one of the Dreamhost emails, so it is impossible for you to ask for the authorization code if you want to transfer it, because you have no access to the registrant email.

After more complaint about this situation to the authorities that have to help me in such a dispute, I lost my trust that I will get back my domain names. But I will follow it in the future, just to see to whom will give it Dreamhost.

Domaining, as it is defined by Wikipedia, is the business of buying, selling, developing and monetizing Internet domain names.

The domain name market is a speculative market. The investors will buy shares for a domain name for which they will have a revenue when the domain name will be sold only. Fusu just help in establishing “the right price” for every premium domain name.

From the point of view of the ethimology, Fusu (Chinese: 扶蘇; pinyin: fúsū) (died 210 BC) was the first son of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and hence the heir apparent. He believed that society would be impeccably run if everyone shared perfect knowledge (omniscience). Maybe this was the reason of this name for the first domain name stock exchange.

The declared mission of Fusu is to

1. operate the world’s largest and most liquid domain secondary market,
2. open the domain secondary market to shareholders,
3. provide means to get liquidity for domain owners, without giving up control of their domain, and
4. add transparency to the domain aftermarket.

February 19th marks the official launch date for Fusu, premiering at T.R.A.F.F.I.C., with a list of premium generic Domain Names that combine a value of almost $1.5 million.

There are today over 140 millions registered domains, with a 31% increase over the first quarter of 2006, and the domain name market could reach $4 billion by 2010 with a rate of purchase of approximately 90,000 domains a day.

Fusu is based on the concept of the traditional stock exchange applied to the domain name market, by providing a trading platform for owners, shareholders and investors.

The domain name owner that list their domains on Fusu retain full control, but still get liquidity from selling up to 45% of their domains.

By listing your domain with Fusu, you agree to sell pro-rated rights to future sale revenue or parking revenue from the domain.

You retain ownership, and as the owner you can decide to sell your domain. The shareholders are, however, entitled to a percentage of the sale price, according to their share ownership.

“For the first time, domainers can get immediate and significant liquidity without having to give up control over their domains”, said Xavier Buck, CEO of EuroDNS and Fusu’s strategic partner.

There are still problems that have to be solved, it is in fact still a beta, but, if Fusu will be a success, it will be a big success.