Evian’s Viral Roller Babies Jump from YouTube to TV

The lovable Evian Roller Babies, which broke the world record for the most viewed online advertisement in history last year, have made the leap from YouTube to your television. Evian’s wildly successful viral campaign has surpassed 100 million total views. It was one of the first YouTube-exclusive campaigns by a major brand. Now according to Social Times, the campaign has debuted on Los Angeles TV stations and will run in New York sometime this summer. The company will also air the commercials in other countries, including France and the UK. ...

April 17, 2010 · 1 min · 126 words · Omid Farhang

Facebook Twice as Popular as Google in the Workplace

Business employees are visiting Facebook from the workplace more than any other internet site, including Google, Managed Security Services company Network Box discovered in a recent study. The company looked at 13 billion URLs used by businesses in the first quarter of 2010 and found that 6.8% of all business Internet traffic goes to Facebook, which is double the amount of business traffic that goes to Google and nearly triple the amount that Yahoo gets. ...

April 17, 2010 · 2 min · 292 words · Omid Farhang

Facebook, YouTube are sucking enterprise bandwidth

A study of web traffic from enterprises in the first quarter of this year has shown that YouTube videos used 10 percent of bandwidth – more than any other site. Facebook traffic used 4.5 percent, Windows update 3.3, Yahoo!’s image server Yimg 2.7 and Google searches 2.5 percent. The study, by the Hong Kong-based security firm Network Box, analyzed traffic to and from 13 billion URLs. The study also analyzed the number of hits: ...

April 17, 2010 · 2 min · 326 words · Omid Farhang

Explore Space with Buzz Aldrin on Your iPhone

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin [iTunes link] has his own iPhone app, and it’s packed full of information, news, images and videos related to space exploration. It’s currently the one of the most popular apps in the Apple App Store’s Education category. “Buzz Aldrin Portal to Science and Space Exploration” is divided into five sections: Space Buzz, News, Interactive, Buzz Life, and More. We’ve pictured most of them below. ...

April 16, 2010 · 2 min · 219 words · Omid Farhang

Subdomains defaced on The Telegraph website

The Telegraph, one of the biggest newspapers in the UK, hasn’t had a good time of it lately where their website is concerned. There were vulnerabilities found in relation to the site back in March involving database access, and it seems a hacking group has gone in and defaced two subdomains. These are the two subdomains in question: shortbreaks(dot)telegraph.co.uk wine-and-dine(dot)telegraph.co.uk/site/index.php They appear to have been compromised by “R.N.S. – Romanian National Security”. Here’s a screenshot, both defacements are identical: ...

April 15, 2010 · 1 min · 201 words · Omid Farhang

Tensions Mount Between Google and European Telecoms Over YouTube

European telecommunication giants are preparing to fight Google over the data traffic and bandwidth that is consumed due to YouTube videos, according to a new report from the Financial Times. Their goal: to have Google pay them for the bandwidth YouTube and its other websites consume. Telefónica, S.A., France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are all cited in the report as being part of a new coalition looking to change the current state of affairs, where users are charged for Internet access, rather than websites that provide the content they consume. These telecoms believe that Google should share its online ad revenue with network operators for carrying its content. YouTube is their biggest complaint: by far, it is the most data-intensive service that the search giant offers. ...

April 10, 2010 · 2 min · 269 words · Omid Farhang

YouTube Returns Blogs Some Link Love

You may have noticed that certain YouTube videos have a link below them pointing to a popular blog. This little “As seen on” link is Google’s way to thank blogs that have promoted popular videos on their site. If you’re wondering why this or that site hasn’t been linked, it’s hard to say, since there are no clear guidelines as to when a site will be given a link-back. From YouTube’s official blog: ...

April 9, 2010 · 1 min · 158 words · Omid Farhang

Election results? Our survey says…

…”click here to view”. Yes, it seems almost anything is a target for money generating survey spam. In this case, we start with a Youtube video: And we finish with this: Even better, these “fill in a survey to see the content” websites now pop up an additional message as you try to leave the page: ...

April 9, 2010 · 1 min · 132 words · Omid Farhang

Microsoft Office on iPad? Don’t Hold Your Breath

There’s at least one company that isn’t scrambling to get an iPad app ready for launch day, and that company is Microsoft. Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s business division, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the company will “wait and see” how iPad sales perform before adapting Microsoft Office 2010 for the device. “We never say never, but we have no current plans [to develop a version of Office for the iPad],” Elop claimed. ...

April 3, 2010 · 2 min · 297 words · Omid Farhang

Google is armed for iPad launch

Google today announced its strategy for delivering services on the iPad, and unveiled a new mobile Gmail interface optimized for bigger touchscreens. Since the iPad lies somewhere between a notebook and a smartphone, the Mountain View search company is taking a hybrid approach, offering some services in their desktop format, some in their mobile format, and some as standalone apps. “We’re particularly excited by how tablet computers create the opportunity for new kinds of user interaction,” Punit Soni, Product Manager for Google Mobile wrote in the official Google blog. “Here on the mobile team, we often talk about how mobile devices are sensor-rich: they can sense touch through their screens, see with a camera, hear through a microphone, and they know where they are with GPS. The same holds true for tablet computers, and we’re just starting to work through how our products can become even better on devices like the iPad.” ...

April 2, 2010 · 2 min · 262 words · Omid Farhang