farming

Google has launched one of its first experiments aimed at fighting back against content farms, asking the public to help identify the worst offenders.

Chrome users can now download an extension from Google called Personal Blocklist that will allow users to block certain domains from appearing in a personalized list of search results. Google will also track the domains that users flag "and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results," wrote Matt Cutts, principal engineer at Google and a prominent anti-spam spokesman for the company, in a blog post.

For several weeks Cutts and Google have been acknowledging frustration … Read more

When Demand Media holds its initial public offering tomorrow, it'll be the first venture-backed IPO of 2011 and, though relatively small by Wall Street's standards, the most talked-about technology IPO in quite some time. That'll happen in this peculiar era of tech-industry financials, when the the big trend has been to prolong an IPO in favor of less restrictive private-market trading activity.

But that's not what everyone's talking about with Demand--nor is the $179.4 million in revenue it reported in the first nine months of 2010 (an operating loss of $6.4 million), nor … Read more

Google is ready to fire a shot across the bow of the so-called content farms, willing to acknowledge recent criticism of the quality of its search results but still not quite ready to detail specific remedies.

The company plans to announce this morning that it has heard the complaints over the past several months regarding the quality of Google search, without question the most important component of Google's public image. While no hard details were provided in an interview prior to the announcement, Google's Matt Cutts, principal engineer and lead voice on search-quality issues, told CNET that the … Read more

Demand Media, the syndicated online content company that filed for an IPO in August, has modified its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission amid reports that the initial public offering has been delayed because of regulators' questions about Demand's accounting practices.

The issue, it appears, is that Demand Media amortizes the expenses of paying its freelance writers, distributing the cost over five years. It's something that the company has attempted to explain further in new additions to its SEC filing.

"Capitalized media content is amortized on a straight-line basis over five years, representing the … Read more

The less you drive, the less likely you are to get into car accidents--at least that's how insurance companies look at it. To better align drivers' automobile insurance rates with risk, State Farm is offering its California customers discounts based on their odometer readings.

The insurance giant created Drive Safe & Save (DSS), a new voluntary program for California customers that adjusts future policy rates based on the previous six months of driving. Prior to the program, the insurance company rated drivers as either a low- or high-mileage driver, with the cutoff point at 7,500 miles per year. … Read more

The developer of a proposed wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island doubled the size of the project, saying that greater scale would allow it to sell the electricity produced at a lower price.

Deepwater Wind said it now plans to install 200 wind turbines some 20 miles off the shore of the smallest U.S. state. The project could generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 800,000 typical American homes.

The high price of electricity generated by proposed offshore wind farms has generated fresh public opposition to the projects as developers reach agreements to sell their … Read more

As of November, the Italian city of Rovigo is home to the largest photovoltaic (PV) solar plant in Europe, SunEdison announced today.

SunEdison, a subsidiary of the silicon wafer manufacturer MEMC Electronic Materials, is right, but even it admits the claim comes with a qualifier by calling the 70-megawatt plant "Europe's largest single site solar farm."

For there are many large-scale solar projects both in existence and under way in Europe involving more megawatts, but very often those announcements of super-megawatt projects are really a series of smaller, interconnected PV farms spread out over a region.

Brandenburg, … Read more

FarmVille creator and upstart Zynga could be worth more than the more established Electronic Arts.

According to a valuation on SharesPost, which analyzes the value of private companies, Zynga is currently worth about $5.51 billion. As of this writing, EA's market capitalization stands at $5.2 billion.

Admittedly, valuations on SharesPost are not an exact science. The firm says that it calculates a company's value based on "recent transaction prices, current posts, research estimates, and recent last round venture financial valuations." But considering that the companies it analyzes are private, there is no way to … Read more

FarmVille is now available to iPad customers, Zynga announced today.

Would-be farmers can get their hands on FarmVille by downloading it for free from Apple's App Store. Those who have been playing the game elsewhere can now continue to seed the fields and run tractors over their farms on Apple's tablet. Users who are new to the game can start a whole new farm within the app. Push notifications will be used to alert farmers to the health of their crops, Zynga said.

After FarmVille became popular on Facebook and quickly started annoying friends of players who were … Read more