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XCONOMY -- Oct 30 -- Eons (600k users, 600k uniques a month) is for those on the "flip side of 50" and amassed $32 million in venture capital, but then laid off a third of its staff (now at 37 employees, down from 62) in September and has been reshaping its identity and will evolve into Facebook for baby boomers. FULL ARTICLE @ XCONOMY
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Oct 30 -- 50 million U.S. people have a disability but there are few ways for advertisers to reach them. Disaboom.com (live Oct 1, went public in May on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board securities market) hopes to change this. Netflix, Johnson & Johnson and Avis have signed ad deals. Disaboom paid DATA Inc., $280k to design the site, and also acquired lovebyrd.com, a dating Web site for people with disabilities, to fold into Disaboom. At the end of June, the company listed $2.2 million in cash. The number of adults with some form of disability is growing because the population is aging. 40% of those 65+ are disabled, compared with 19% of those between 16 to 64, according to census data. FULL ARTICLE @ THE NEW YORK TIMES
This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.
IDG NEWS SERVICE -- Oct 30 -- Yahoo recently announced it will phase out Yahoo 360 and migrate its features and content to a "universal profile system" to more closely tie its various services together. Y! Messenger 9.0 beta launches today with accentuated social networking features that will allow people to invite friends to watch videos or flip through photo albums in real time, sharing those activities as if they were sitting side by side in one's living room. The feature is one of several designed to boost interactions among users. Last month Yahoo Messenger had 94 million unique users, up ~30% from Sep. '06 and 2nd worldwide to Microsoft's Messenger with ~227 million. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH WORLD
Mark Brooks: Too little, too late, c'mon Yahoo! We're still pitting for you!
TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 29 -- Sequoia backed Meebo has launched Meebo Platform, allowing third party developers to create applications for the Meebo web chat service but the platform is not open to all who choose to come. The company is announcing four partners this evening (Tokbox video chat, Talkshoe conference calling, Ustream lifecasting and Pudding Media PC-PC VOIP calling) and opening up a sandbox area for developers to build potential applications. Meebo will sell ads into the applications directly and split revenue 50/50 with the app. developers. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
EMEDIA WIRE -- Oct 29 -- StoryLink offers members opportunities to network and access workshops. The Writers Store® is behind StoryLink. FULL ARTICLE @ EMEDIA WIRE
JAMAICA GLEANER -- Oct 28 -- MySpace is taking on the ownership role of a TV network, Myspacetv.com, and has co-developed a new scripted serial, Roommates, about several underdressed young women who make ends meet by starring in a reality show about underdressed young women. It will air daily at Myspacetv.com. FULL ARTICLE @ JAMAICA GLEANER
Mark Brooks: See this utterly mindless guff right here.
HIT SEARCH -- Oct 26 -- UK mobile provider, Orange, will charge UK subscribers 3 GBP/month to access unlimited Bebo from there mobile phones enabling them to send comments by text message directly to their friends' profile, receive immediate SMS profile notifications and send Bebo Mails via SMS. FULL ARTICLE @ HIT SEARCH
TIMES ONLINE -- Oct 28 -- Rumour has it, Apple, Coca-Cola, Condé Nast, General Motors, Nike and other top brand names will sign ad deals with Facebook. Last week, Microsoft beat Google to buy a 1.6% stake, valuing Facebook at $15 billion — more than twice as much as British Airways, a company that made a profit of $602m last year. Online advertising is a $16.5 billion business in America (Jupiter Research). Growing ~14% a year. By 2011 it will be worth $32.1 billion. Shoppers spend 10% of their money online. $900m will be spent advertising on social-networking sites in America and $335m elsewhere in 2007 (eMarketer). For Microsoft the $240m investment is chump change, but marks a significant evolution for the software giant as it increasingly moves its muscle online. FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
Mark Brooks: Microsoft invetsing $240m in Facebook is the biggest SNS industry changing event since Friendster started up in 2003.
MYADSL.CO.ZA -- Oct 25 -- South Africa's internet giant, 24.com, has launched Laaik.it, following in the footsteps of the popular US based Digg.com, just like another local social news startup Muti. Laaik.it allows users to submit, rate and discuss news. Laaik.it has been themed with some local flava with its name deriving from an Afrikaans term with use of the Italian domain name (.it), and combines elements from Digg and popular bookmarking site del.icio.us. Media24 captures ~60% of the SA internet audience. FULL ARTICLE @ MYADSL.CO.ZA
Mark Brooks: SNS heavyweights need to move fast or risk losing international market share to local players who know how to localized, and drive local traffic.
TMC.NET -- Oct 25 -- Users can post on Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter using only their voice. SpinVox's users can speak into their mobile handset and create a post to be directly posted to their chosen site. FULL ARTICLE @ TMC.NET
Mark Brooks: I use Simulscribe, the leading competitor to Spinvox, on my 212-444-1636 line. If you'd like to try the accuracy, call me and Ieave your email on the voicemail and I'll email the transcribed email back to you.
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