Some of the new features are available today, but some you will have to wait on a little bit. Microsoft highlights the following new features:

• Streetside Photos application (in technology preview): Available today, this tech preview mines geo-tagged photos from Flickr, and relates them to the Streetside imagery in Bing Maps. As more people contribute and share imagery, we can reunite those photos with the location where they were taken. This application will also enable the layering of historical imagery, so people can go back in time and see a location as it existed decades prior.

• World Wide Telescope Integration: We’re not just stopping at the street, and are excited to announce our vision for the initial integration with the World Wide Telescope, a project out of Microsoft Research. Once launched, you will literally be able to “walk” outside in Streetside mode, look up, and see what’s above – way above, with constellations coming to life.

• Indoor Panoramas: At the same time as we’re getting more “universal” with World Wide Telescope, we’re also getting more intimate. Today, we’re showing the first results of our indoor panoramas work. This will provide an experience identical to Streetside, but won’t be limited to places you can take a vehicle. Whether you’re exploring Seattle’s Pike Place Market, or your favorite theme park, Bing Maps will give you the most immersive experience of the place.

• Video Overlay Technology: MIcrosoft also demonstrated a preview of our new video overlay technology, which enables real-time video to be overlaid seamlessly on street-level imagery, adding another dimension to the mapping experience. In the coming year, we think you will be pleasantly surprised with how far Bing takes this new technology.

Meanwhile, Google has introduced Google Maps Labs, similar to Gmail labs, only for maps. Right now there are only 9 features, which you can enable/disable at anytime, but that list is sure to increase greatly over time. Current features include:

- Drag ‘n’ Zoom
- Aerial imagery
- Back to Beta
- Where in the World game
- Rotatable Maps
- What’s Around here?
- LatLng Tooltip
- LatLng Marker
- Smart Zoom

Click the little green flask icon at the top of Google Maps to access these, and see more details about what each one does.

Google is also just finished pushing out an imagery update for Google Earth and Google Maps. More on that here.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – News Corp’s MySpace said on Thursday it has agreed to buy music recommendation service iLike, as the once-hot social networking site tries to reinvent itself as an entertainment portal.

MySpace declined to disclose financial terms of an acquisition that brings iLike’s twin brother founders Ali and Hadi Partovi and Nat Brown into the MySpace fold.

The site was backed by venture capital funds and Ticketmaster Entertainment. Several blogs, including AllThingsDigital, reported earlier in the week that iLike would be bought by MySpace for around $20 million.

iLike is best known as a popular social music discovery service on Facebook, the social networking site that has overtaken MySpace as the top Web destination for friends and family to share photos, messages, video clips and other media.

MySpace, which was once the most popular and fastest growing social networking site just two years ago, has lost ground with users who have moved onto Facebook or other sites.

“We think that integration of iLike should help drive stickier traffic and ultimately improve monetization of MySpace user base,” said JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan.

The acquisition comes as News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch has pressed to reinvent MySpace as an entertainment portal, taking advantage of its continued strength in areas like music and movies.

While it is still one of the most popular video and music sites, data from Nielsen shows time spent by users on MySpace fell by 31 percent between April 2008 and April 2009. In the same period, user time on Facebook grew 700 percent.

MySpace Chief Executive Owen Van Natta said on a conference call that iLike’s social discovery technology can be extended to other areas for MySpace users beyond music — areas such as entertainment, video and games.

He explained this is why MySpace, rather than MySpace Music, made the acquisition. MySpace Music, which launched last September, is a joint venture between MySpace and the four major music companies EMI Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group.

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE57I6FT20090819

Half of households and more than 80 percent of businesses now have a broadband connection.

The most active Internet users are those between the ages of 16 to 24 with 73 percent of them regularly using advanced services to create and share online content, twice the EU population average (35%).

Viviane Reding
European Commission

The majority (66%) of all Europeans under 24 use the Internet every day, compared to the EU average of 43 percent. They also have more advanced Internet skill than the rest of the population.

“Europe’s digital economy has tremendous potential to generate huge revenues across all sectors, but to turn this advantage into sustainable growth and new jobs, governments must show leadership by adopting coordinated policies that dismantle existing barriers to new services,” said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media.

“We should seize the opportunity of a new generation of Europeans who will soon be calling the shots in the European market place. These young people are intensive Internet users and are also highly demanding consumers. To release the economic potential of these ‘digital natives’, we must make access to digital content an easy and fair game.”

The report found younger Internet users were reluctant to pay to download or view content online like videos or music (33% say they are not willing to pay anything at all, which is twice the EU average).

Despite progress, a third of EU citizens have never used the Internet. Only 7 percent have shopped online in another member state.

“Pro-active policy making across the EU must ensure that everyone has a high-speed internet connection and that there is an online single market, where people can easily use online services across borders,” the report concluded.

source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/08/04/eu-says-internet-can-boost-economy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc shares fell for a second straight day after the company announced a Web search partnership with Microsoft Corp that failed to live up to Wall Street expectations.

Even as the broader market rallied, Yahoo shares dropped as much as 6 percent on Thursday. The stock recovered a little in late trading, but is still down 14 percent since the agreement was announced on Wednesday morning.

The deal, in which Yahoo essentially outsources search to Microsoft, is being viewed by analysts as more positive for the software company than for Yahoo. Microsoft’s stock rose about 1 percent on Thursday.

“Everybody was anticipating something much more than this,” said Bob Bacarella, portfolio manager at the Monetta Fund, which does not own Yahoo shares. “To me it’s like Yahoo sold their soul, but they still don’t have a body.”

Some investors had hoped the deal would help pave the way for an acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft, which offered as much as $33 a share to buy the company last year. Yahoo shares were down 3 percent at $14.65 in Thursday afternoon trading.

Others were disappointed that Microsoft did not agree to pay Yahoo an upfront payment, which some had expected to be several billion dollars.

With the prospect of a Microsoft acquisition no longer on the table, investors are taking a harder look at Yahoo’s fundamentals, said Mark Coffelt, a portfolio manager at the Empiric Core Equity Fund.

“People are reassessing why they own Yahoo and where it’s going to trade and how fast it’s going to grow,” said Coffelt.

Yahoo currently trades at around 34 times historic earnings, compared with Google Inc’s 21 times multiple.

“It’s priced to see the company grow really rapidly and there’s certainly no evidence of that in the last few years,” Coffelt said.

Cowen & Co analyst Jim Friedland said the PE ratio does not tell the entire story on account of Yahoo’s significant holdings in Asian assets, including the Alibaba Group, which owns Alibaba.com Ltd.

Looking at Yahoo from an enterprise value to EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) ratio basis, he said the stock has valuation support. But that does not mean it has any upside in the near term.

“Just because something trades at a low multiple doesn’t meant there’s not a good reason for it,” said Friedland.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday the deal was not understood in the market.

“It’s a win-win deal from my perspective,” he said, adding he was surprised by the steep fall in Yahoo’s shares.

Trading in Yahoo calls options appeared to be adding further, indirect pressure to the stock, said some market watchers.

Before the announcement, “there had been a lot of interest in Yahoo call options on hopes that pending news would lift Yahoo shares. However, since that did not happen, there has been aggressive selling to close bullish call positions established prior to the announcement,” said Frederic Ruffy, option strategist at Web information site WhatsTrading.com.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; additional reporting by Doris Frankel; editing by Andre Grenon)

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE56T6H220090731?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

You know this history by now. Here’s what the companies have to say:

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry, and I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities and mobile experiences.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, “Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Ballmer. “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

Key Terms as highlighted in the announcement:

- The term of the agreement is 10 years;

- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms;

- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology;

- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process;

- Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force;

- Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology;

- Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites;

-  Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 percent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement; and

- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

- Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country;

- At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million; and

- The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

source:http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/07/29/mirosoft-and-yahoo-finally-announce-deal