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YouTube stats revealed

YouTube has just announced the newest addition to its video service. It's called YouTube Insights and it allows content publishers, partners, and advertisers to see detailed statistical data for their videos. Metrics that the service provides include geographic viewing and relative popularity.

YouTube claims that this new service will allow you to determine trends in how long it takes for a video to become popular as well as what happens when they do become popular. Advantages vary for the different groups that will be using Insights. Creators will benefit from looking at viewing trends, partners can use the data … Read more

Silicon Valley and the Zen way

We're all familiar with the notion that Silicon Valley's roots lie in the Bay Area's adventure-seeking gold rush history and the mind-expanding experiments and hippie culture of the 60s.

But you may have not realized that there are strong links between the tech start-up mindset and the Buddhist philosophy of Zen.

A blog called ValleyZen is exploring that connection.

"We believe there is a strong link between Zen and technology. The Silicon Valley spirit is incredibly Zen," says Drue Kataoka, a master Sumi-e Japanese brush painting artist who launched the blog in January with Bill … Read more

Google Docs: Now with more Word 2003

Google today updated the menu structure of the word processor in Google Docs. Gone are the menus that change the toolbars underneath. Gone are the useful but unusual "revision" and "tag" items. What we have now is familiar to anyone who's used Microsoft Word 2003. In fact, the five menu items have the same names as items on the menu bar of Word 2003.

Google is saying that Microsoft got it right in 2003. Ironically, with the 2007 Office suite, Microsoft itself has moved on to a prettier, but not universally loved menu structure that … Read more

Another Googler gets in on pre-IPO Facebook

The trend is clear--the best bait for well-fed Googlers, especially ones who joined after the company's 2004 IPO, is another hot pre-IPO company. And Facebook is that company.

The latest Googler to jump to Facebook is Ethan Beard. Formerly director of social media at the search giant, he will become director of business development at the popular social-networking company. The news was first reported by TechCrunch.

The defection comes shortly after Google sales chief Sheryl Sandberg left to go to Facebook. Others who have blazed the trail include Benjamin Ling of Google Checkout, Justin Rosenstein of GDrive, and Gideon … Read more

Google paid-click figures up 3 percent in February

Updated at 6:25 p.m. PDT with an analyst comment.

The latest paid-click figures for Google were up only 3.1 percent in February from a year earlier, possibly prompting a 3 percent drop in Google's stock.

The vast majority of Google's revenue is from people clicking on sponsored search listings.

Even though Google's paid-click growth rate was well below the fourth-quarter's 25 percent year-over-year growth, Google outperformed the market growth rate of 0.9 percent, JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan wrote in a research note citing ComScore figures. ComScore has not released the latest figures … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 689: Mousetronauts

Please, someone, make a Mousetronauts show. We're begging you. In other news, cell phones on airplanes appear to be coming to European airspace near you. Comcast and Time Warner are lining up behind WiMax, and South Park is coming online -- for free! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 689

Approval for mobiles on aircraft http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7314362.stm

TiVo's take: It's a Comcast mistake http://cultureofownership.org/?p=24

Comcast and Time Warner to bankroll WiMax joint venture http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9903411-7.html

Motorola to split into two, … Read more

Google U.S. search market share up, Yahoo down

Updated 2:55 p.m. PST with January and year-ago figures for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Google's market share for Web search in the U.S. rose in February to 58.7 percent, up from January and the same period a year ago, while Yahoo's, at 17.6 percent, was down compared with the same periods, according to data released Wednesday by Nielsen.

In January, Google had 56.9 percent share and Yahoo had 19 percent share. A year ago, Google's share was 55.8 percent and Yahoo's was 20.7 percent.

February share at MSN/… Read more

Does Microsoft need a value menu?

Microsoft has been tight-lipped about the "Albany" product that it has just started testing, but ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley hears it might be a consumer bundle that includes Windows Live OneCare, Office Live Workspace, and Office Home and Student Edition.

The product, which apparently also goes by the name "ValueBox" may be an attempt to beef up the consumer version of Office amid stepped-up competition from Google Docs and other free and online competitors.

It strikes me, though, that Microsoft may be looking at ways to protect the Home and Student version of Office, a … Read more

Mail Trends looks deep into your in-box

Sorting out the overload of e-mail is one of the mostly unsolved problems of computing. The first step is analyzing your in-box, which is what Google developer Mihai Parparita has done with Mail Trends, a program that lets users analyze and visualize their inbox.

Mail Trends, which is similar to Google Reader Trends, extracts data from IMAP servers and displays statistics such as distribution of messages by year, month, day, day of week, and time of day; distribution by message size; a breakdown of top senders, recipients, and mailing lists; distribution of senders, recipients, and mailing lists over time; and … Read more