If the Web has a single point of failure, you’d think it was Google, given the outcry over the the outages suffered by some of the company’s services Thursday. Something went wrong at the company this morning and whatever it was had widespread effects on a broad spectrum of Google services. The source of the disruption? A system error that sent a bunch of Google Web traffic to Asia, apparently.
In advance of its shareholder meeting today, Google is holding a press event at its Mountain View, Calif., campus with CEO Eric Schmidt presiding. Also on hand: Dave Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development; Susan Wojcicki, vice president for product management, and Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience. Hot topics of the day: Google’s and Apple’s interlocking boards, YouTube and the company’s thoughts on the econalypse, AOL and netbooks.
Yahoo claimed 20.6 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, according to comScore. A year from now it will claim just 17.51 percent or less, its share gutted by the loss of deals that once made Yahoo’s the default search toolbar on new HP and Acer PCs.
Who got those deals? Microsoft and Google, of course.
If Sweden’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive was crafted to scare the hell out of the country’s Internet population, it seems to have had the desired affect. Swedish Internet traffic dropped by a third on Wednesday after the law, which allows copyright holders to force ISPs to divulge the IP addresses of computers sharing copyrighted material, was implemented.
Technically, the term refers to the frenzied flow of games and the intensity of the contenders for the NCAA Championship crown. But the NCAA doesn’t have a corner on “March Madness”–those descriptors work well in other instances, too. To wit:
Ironic, isn’t it, that Google, one of Net neutrality’s staunchest advocates, has been approaching major cable and phone companies with a proposal that appears to violate the very tenets of that principle? How could a company that has argued tirelessly that all Internet traffic should be treated equally, suddenly reverse course and seek preferential treatment for its own traffic?
Short answer: it didn’t.
Next month’s Macworld Conference & Expo show floor will be quite a bit easier to navigate than in years past. With registration down by 20 percent over last year, there are likely to be far fewer attendees, and with a growing list of companies pulling out of the show, there’ll be fewer booths for them to crowd. Earlier this week, Adobe said it had decided against exhibiting on the show floor. A coterie of other companies is joining it, top among them, Belkin, which has also pulled out of exhibiting at CES. What’s next–a Super Bowl boycott?
According to security experts, Web-hosting outfit McColo is responsible for enabling the broadcast of more than 75 percent of all spam globally. Its client list is a rogues gallery of bad-guy syndicates involved in everything from botnets to counterfeit pharmaceuticals and kiddie porn. So how is it that MoColo’s ISPs, Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing, were unaware of that until notified by a Washington Post reporter?
Investors concerned about Google’s performance in the current economic slump set their Mylanta aside this afternoon after the company reported third-quarter earnings that beat expectations. Excluding one-time items, Google earned $4.92 a share in the third quarter on revenues of $4.04 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of $4.75 a share on revenue of $4.053 billion.
Good thing Facebook is committed to growth over profits because according to the latest metrics from Hitwise Intelligence, growth is slowing. While traffic in the United Kingdom to the site did increase by 4 percent between August and September this year, it’s down from 50 percent over the same period last year.
As predictable as day following night, litigation has followed the Federal Communications Commission’s sanctions against Comcast. In a long-expected action, Comcast sued the commission today claiming the FCC had no legal grounds on which to punish it for throttling file-sharing traffic on its network.
Comcast is apparently too busy drafting its “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” to bother attending the daylong hearing into its dubious “network management” practices. An odd decision for a company so intent on “clarifying” the practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications running on their networks. But according to a company spokesperson, Comcast [...]
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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