p2pnet World Headlines: Dec 21, 2009
Content-Search Deals Make Twitter Profitable BusinessWeek
Twitter is ending 2009 on a high note. The microblogging site has reached profitability after inking $25 million of deals that make its content searchable by Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT), Bloomberg BusinessWeek has learned. In October, Twitter said it had struck multiyear arrangements that make users’ short blog postings available on Google.com and on Bing, which is run by Microsoft. Those agreements carry sufficient value to help Twitter achieve a small profit for 2009, say two people familiar with the company’s finances, who asked to remain anonymous because Twitter’s books are not a matter of public record.
Calling on Leakers to Help Document Local Misdeeds Associated Press
The WikiLeaks home page. The site has applied for a $532,000 grant. Since its founding in late 2006, the Web site WikiLeaks.org has pursued that idea to the heights of commercial and political power — exposing internal memos about the dumping of toxic material off the African coast, the membership rolls of a racist British party, and most recently more than half a million pager messages from around the time of the 9/11 attacks, including some from government officials. But the time has come for WikiLeaks, which calls itself “the first intelligence agency of the people,” to think locally, says Daniel Schmitt, a German computer engineer who is a full-time unpaid spokesman for the Web site. “We are trying to bring WikiLeaks more directly to communities,” he said in a telephone interview. The organization has applied for a $532,000 two-year grant from the Knight Foundation to expand the use of its secure, anonymous submission system by local newspapers. The foundation’s News Challenge will give as much as $5 million this year to projects that use digital technology to transform community news.
Yelp’s Change of Heart MediaPost
What sort of man walks away from over half a billion dollars, particularly when he operates in an industry notorious for dramatic shifts and spectacularly disruptive developments? The sort of man that is Jeremy Stoppleman, CEO of Yelp, who — according to TechCrunch, which broke the news Friday that Google’s acquisition of the local reviews site was nearly a done deal — just had a change of heart. “Something happened that made Yelp reconsider the deal,” writes an incredulous TechCrunch. “Over the weekend they notified Google that they were not going to sell, say multiple sources.” Quoting the great Yogi Berra, Marketing Pilgrim writes, “‘It ain’t over ’til it’s over,’ and the deal between Yelp and Google is the latest proof of that.”
BT to complete super-fast broadband network by 2012 BBC
BT’s superfast broadband network will be completed in time for the 2012 Olympic Games, the firm has announced. The £1.5bn fibre-optic network will offer speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) for some customers, supporting high-definition video. However, it will only reach around 40% of homes, mainly in towns and cities. The firm had originally said the programme would be completed by March 2013 but said the rollout was now “ahead of schedule”.
Trade court rules for Kodak in patent fight Reuters
Eastman Kodak Co has won a preliminary fight with Samsung Electronics, which the camera giant had accused of infringing its digital camera patents. An International Trade Commission judge ruled after an administrative proceeding that Samsung had infringed two Kodak patents, the ITC said on Friday. Kodak shares closed 13 cents higher at $4.11, up 3.3 percent for the day on the New York Stock Exchange.
NY socialite Astor’s son given 1 to 3 year sentence Reuters
The 85-year-old son of the late New York socialite Brooke Astor was sentenced to at least one year in prison on Monday for looting his mother’s estate of money that had been set aside for charity. Anthony Marshall, Astor’s only child, was sentenced to a minimum of one year and a maximum of three years by New York State Supreme Court Judge A. Kirke Bartley, who rejected a request from Marshall’s lawyers to spare him prison time. “It is a paradox for me that such abundance has led to such incredible sadness,” Bartley said at sentencing. Defense lawyers argued prison time would equal a death sentence for Marshall because of his age and poor health, and they appealed his conviction.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
December, 2009
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