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Online entertainment to stir Internet congestion

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internet-overload.gifOnce again, leading industry experts are raising anxiety that the Internet will crash due to the rapid usage growth which could outpace network capacity. The culprit is online entertainment in the form of video clips, movies, online games and social networking sites. There is even published research predicting this so-called Internet brownout will happen in 2010.

According to NYT, some experts do not share this sentiment for they believe the advancements on Internet technology is also moving in “an impressive space as well.” Instead of crash, users will just experience Internet clogging like slow down on download speeds and data-heavy services.

Whether its Internet crash or clogging, these issues could adversely affect many American businesses as well as the nation’s overall competitiveness in the online world since the new economy is measured in terms of high-speed networks.

Photo via PCPlus

Originally posted on March 13, 2008 @ 8:34 am

Web companies stepping up stalking activities

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confidential.gifIn this digital world it’s all about the details. Collectively, this chunk of information is worth billions of dollars in the form of advertising revenues.

So it’s not really surprising why most online companies are dying to gather our personal information by tracking our online activities. Just ask Facebook’s Zucerkberg is you don’t believe me.

However, Internet activity tracking is worse that we normally imagine. According to a news article, research firm comScore found out that major Web companies including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Myspace and AOL capture about 336 billion data every month!

Now, here’s why Microsoft is so into Yahoo. It turned out Yahoo gathers the most information every month, recording about 110 million data per month or 811 per user.

Why are the privacy groups and consumers not complaining about this? Apparently, most of the data collected are done covertly.

As expected, these online companies are quick to defend its practices using consumer-protection policies and credibility as punch lines.

Originally posted on March 10, 2008 @ 8:48 am

US Mobile Internet registers 154% growth in 2007

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It seems there’s no stopping the invasion of Mobile 2.0 or the convergence of mobile technology and Internet. The latest data from research firm comScore reveals that the “number of computers using mobile broadband technology to access the Internet grew by 154 percent in Q4 2007 versus the same period in 2006.”

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“Though mobile broadband access is currently used by about 1 percent of the total U.S. Internet population it is poised for significant growth over the next few years,” said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore. “As consumers increasingly demand and depend on portable Internet access, the demand for mobile broadband should continue to increase.”

An interesting insight here is the disparity of mobile Internet across different household income. It turned out this is still considered as luxury. Those making at least $100,000 were 37 percent more likely than average to use mobile broadband and those with incomes below $25,000 were 41 percent less likely to do so.

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Originally posted on March 6, 2008 @ 10:02 am

uBroadcast launches new comedy site

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ubroadcast, Inc. has successfully launched “ubroadcast Comedy”, the first in a series of content specific web sites currently under development.

The company has designated channel 200 as its new Comedy Channel, which in conjunction with the new comedy specific web site, will feature Independent comedy broadcasters, as well as showcase professional scheduled broadcasts.

The first regularly scheduled show on the new ubroadcast Comedy Channel is the Lunatic Radio show and airs every Sunday at 5PM EST. Lunatic Radio is a live and interactive “Vulgar, awkward, and sometimes funny” broadcast that interviews a wide range of guests, including comedians Dane Cook, Jamie Kennedy, Michael Ian Black, and musician Richard Patrick, most notably from the band, Filter.

Originally posted on March 6, 2008 @ 1:44 pm

Domain name registrations reach 150 million in 2007

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domain-names.gifPerhaps driven by rise of user-generated contents and online startups, the number of Internet domain name registrations has reached 150 million last year. The growth drivers are .com and .net with its combined value of 80.4 million or 54% of the total registered names.

According to Verisign’s fourth quarter 2007 Domain Name Industry Brief, domain names increased by about 33 million on the said quarter. The total number of domain names increased by 15.4 million in 2007 compared to 2006. About 7.5 million of that coming from .com and .net registrations.

via Business Standard

Originally posted on March 7, 2008 @ 9:33 am