SEARCH CLINIC

comScore, Inc.  has released May 2010 data showing that 183 million U.S. Internet users watched online videos during the month.
YouTube.com achieved record levels of viewing activity in May with an all-time high of 14.6 billion videos viewed and surpassing the threshold of 100 videos per viewer for the first time.
U.S. Internet users watched nearly 34 billion videos in May, with Google Sites ranking as the top video property with 14.6 billion videos, representing 43.1 percent of all videos viewed online.

YouTube accounted for the vast majority of videos viewed at the property. Hulu ranked second with 1.2 billion videos, or 3.5 percent of all online videos viewed.

Microsoft Sites ranked third with 642 million (1.9 percent), followed by Vevo with 430 million (1.3 percent) and Viacom Digital with 347 million (1.0 percent).

The research reinforces the need to be on YouTube.

Tomorrow’s blog post by Dr Search will give you more reasons to raise your personal profile to increase your online sales.

comscores’s youtube delivers 14.6 billion videos in May research by click here.

Google is ending the use of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems claiming security concerns.
The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.

“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.  “Many people have been moved away from Windows PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.

New hirees are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”

In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers. Google would not comment on its current policy.

Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems.

The greater number of attacks on Windows has much to do with its prevalence, which has made it a bigger target for attackers.

Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from “quite senior levels”, one employee said. “Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,” said another employee.

In addition to being a semi-formal policy, employees themselves have grown more concerned about security since the China attacks. “Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security,” said one employee.

Employees said it was also an effort to run the company on Google’s own products, including its forthcoming Chrome OS, which will compete with Windows. “A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product,” the employee said. “They want to run things on Chrome.”

The hacking in China hastened the move. “Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products,” said the employee. “It was a long time coming.”

The move created mild discontent among some Google employees, appreciative of the choice in operating systems granted to them – an unusual feature in large companies. But many employees were relieved they could still use Macs and Linux. “It would have made more people upset if they banned Macs rather than Windows,” he added.

Google and Microsoft compete on many fronts, from search, to web-based email, to operating systems.

While Google is the clear leader in search, Windows remains the most popular operating system in the world by a large margin, with various versions accounting for more than 80 per cent of installations, according to research firm Net Applications.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html

Apple has overtaken arch rival Microsoft to become the world’s biggest technology company by stock market valuation.Changes in the share price values of the two companies in this week’s fluctuating trading conditions left the total value of Apple at £154 billion. Microsoft is now valued by investors at £151 billion.

However, Microsoft still enjoys far higher profits than Apple. Its most recent annual net profit was £10 billion, compared with £3.9 billion for Apple.

Microsoft also reported bigger annual revenues of £40.3 billion compared with Apple’s £25.2 billion.

Apple’s shares closed Wednesday trading down 0.4%, while Microsoft fell by 4%.

The big popularity of the iPhone, which has become a big seller since it was first released in 2007, has further boosted Apple’s profits and revenues.

The handset has brought internet access on the move to the mass market, and led to an explosion in downloadable mobile “apps” – applications that enable a huge range of activities, from map reading to booking restaurants.

Meanwhile, this week saw the launch in the UK and eight other countries of Apple’s controversial iPad tablet- as 10 people has already killed themselves whilst making the product- see yesterday’s post below.

Apple has to look back to late 1989 to see the last time it was a bigger company than Microsoft.

Microsoft, whose operating system still run on more than 90% of the world’s personal computers, has not been able to match growth rates from its heyday of the 1990s.

Microsoft continues to make the majority of its earnings from its software and operating systems, and has struggled to successfully diversify into other products.

The spate of suicides at the factory making iPhones and iPads moved closer towards epidemic levels yesterday as a 23 year old man became the tenth worker to leap to his death at the same Foxconn plant.
Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the vast factory in Shenzhen, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs.

The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant in southern China and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.

The latest victim, like the nine other young employees who have committed suicide at the plant since January, leapt from the seventh floor of his dormitory.

The company has made hastily contrived efforts to improve conditions for its workers, the majority of whom stand in the same position for 12-hour shifts and receive the equivalent of about £90 each month in salary. Those measures include the use of “soothing” music on the factory floor, the recruitment of hundreds of dance instructors and the establishment of a suicide hotline.

The plant’s astonishing productivity levels have attracted global clients such as Samsung, IBM and Sony, but labour activists have long alleged that the famous efficiency comes at too high a cost.

The attention given to Foxconn suicides relates less to the actual numbers and more to the apparent pace at which they have risen and that the victims have taken their lives in the same “copycat” way. If the suicide rate at the Foxconn factory matched the Chinese national average (which they do not because most Chinese suicides happen in the country), the sheer size of the 300,000 workforce there would imply around 45 deaths per year.

The steep rate of increase in Foxconn suicides over recent weeks, though, has challenged the business model on which China’s manufacturing industry has grown. The company’s plant in Shenzhen is a city-sized complex set up with the sole purpose of feeding the global appetite for cheap technology.

Speculation that big brands might take their business away from Foxconn to protect their image are unrealistic, said one Tokyo-based electronics analyst. He said that consumers were no longer prepared to pay the sort of money it would cost to build computers, digital cameras and iPods without the productivity of companies such as Foxconn.

An increase in online advertising helped profits at Yahoo almost treble in the three months to the end of March.

Net profit rose to £200m from £79m in the same period a year ago.

The company’s takings were helped by its search and advertising partnership with Microsoft and sake of the Zimbra email service.

But after subtracting commissions paid to its advertising partners, Yahoo’s revenue slipped slightly to £750 million.

This was below analyst’s estimates – pushing Yahoo shares about 3% lower in after hours trading.

The firm’s chief financial officer, Tim Morse, said that its search advertising business “just didn’t seem to grow at the pace they had previously”.

However its display advertising business was strong, growing 20% year on year.

“High quality advertisers are coming back,” Mr Morse said. “We are still in the very early innings of this turnaround.”

Earlier this year, Microsoft’s plans to buy Yahoo’s internet search and search advertising businesses were been cleared by both European and US regulators.

The European Commission ruled that the deal “would not significantly impede effective competition”.

Under the deal, Yahoo’s website uses a Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and the two firms share the revenues.

Following on from our review yesterday on the current changes in the browser market, Dr Search reviews the top 5 browsers.

To download any or all of the browsers, please click on the links or the logos themselves.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox was the phoenix that rose from the ashes of Netscape (in fact, it was originally to be named Phoenix), after the non-profit Mozilla Foundation decided to create a new browser as a rival to the potential Microsoft monopoly. Launched in November 2004 with additional funding from Google (which remains the browser’s default search engine), it is still the world’s second-most-popular browser. The “streamlined” Firefox 4 will be released next year.

RECOMMENDED- It’s quick to download, is security conscious and frequently introduces new features ahead of the competition- as being freeware has masses of free addons/plugins that really will improve your online experience.

Opera Opera was first released by the Norwegian company of the same name in 1996. Opera is the only browser of European origin to appear in the top five browsers of the browser ballot box. It was also Opera’s creators that initiated the anti-trust suit against Microsoft which led to the browser ballot. Though it has the smallest market share of the big five browsers on desktops, Opera’s mobile version is much more successful and available on most smartphones. We are still waiting to hear whether its iPhone app would be approved for release by Apple.

Safari Safari- Apple’s native web browser is more highly regarded since the launch of Safari 4 last year – though it’s still much better in its original Mac version than on Windows. Thanks to the iPhone, for which it remains the default browser (and so far, the only browser worth the name for the device), it has also surged somewhat in popularity. Despite being overtaken by Chrome, its market share continues to increase at the expense of Internet Explorer.

Google Chrome

Chrome- released in Autumn 2008, Google’s browser was explicitly designed for life in the digital cloud. By stripping away the browser furniture to the very edges of the screen, Chrome makes it possible to conceive of a desktop that operates solely online – not least because Google recently launched Chrome OS, its suite of online applications designed to replace desktop software and data storage.

In December, Chrome overtook Safari to become the world’s third-most-popular browser. However since Google launched Buzz in February there has been a storm about data privacy issues.

Internet Explorer

First included on Windows operating systems in 1995, the ugly Internet Explorer triumphed in the first “browser war” with Netscape Navigator, emerging as the world’s most widely used web browser in 1999, a position it has retained ever since.

After reaching a peak 95 per cent market share in the early 2000s, it now enjoys a more modest 60 per cent or thereabouts. Internet Explorer 8 – an improvement on clunky past efforts – was released last year.

Browsers are the software which you use to view and surf the internet, which makes it one of the most important programmes on your computer.

You now had a choice of browsers besides Microsoft’s market-leading Internet Explorer – among them Chrome and Firefox after the eu gave Microsoft an order to offer choice to it’s european users.

“A browser is like the suspension in your car,” explains John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla. “The suspension mediates the relationship between you and the road; it can pass on the bumps quite stiffly or it can soften them. A browser alters the internet’s performance in the same way.”

Lilly was recently in Europe helping to raise awareness of his and other browsers, just as Microsoft began to offer European Windows users a “browser ballot box”: when they connect to the internet, up to 200 million PC users in selected countries, including the UK, may now find a pop-up on their screen, offering them a selection of free, alternative browsers to try instead of their computer’s native Internet Explorer.

Both Firefox and Chrome stand to benefit from the initiative, which began at the end of February, and is part of a settlement agreed between Microsoft and the European Commission following a lengthy anti-trust dispute.

Explorer’s dominance (it remains the default browser for more than 60 per cent of web users worldwide) came not as a result of its quality, but because it is the default browser on Windows PCs. At the moment, Firefox is the world’s second-most-popular browser, with around 25 per cent of the market – approximately 370m users – while Chrome has just over 5 per cent.

Lilly, who is 38, joined Mozilla soon after the launch of Firefox in late 2004 (when the company also launched its free email software, Thunderbird). He became CEO four years later. Mozilla had been founded in the aftermath of the first so-called “browser war” of the 1990s, when Microsoft all-but destroyed Netscape Navigator, the original market leader and the first browser to reach a mass audience.

Following its defeat, Netscape made public its browser’s “Mozilla” source code for other web users, and the Mozilla organisation’s founders – themselves former Netscape employees – decided to craft a successor to Navigator. After agreeing a deal (which still stands) to include a default Google search box in the browser, much of their funding came from Google, which sends revenue Mozilla’s way in return for web traffic. Firefox was the result.

Microsoft had released its Windows XP operating system in 2001, and by 2006 it was on more than 400 million machines. XP’s default browser was the famously clunky Internet Explorer 6 – and its vast, unwarranted popularity, says Lilly, was damaging to the maturation of the internet as a whole, discouraging developers from realising its true potential with their websites.

“So many people still use IE6, and lots of companies have it built into their office IT systems,” says Lilly. “I can’t understand how they do it; it’s a really horrible experience! Hopefully Microsoft’s next browser will finally be to the same standard as everyone else, because that would stimulate another huge wave of creativity on the web.”

The forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 is at least expected to be fast, unlike its predecessors, which uniformly lagged behind the competition in terms of page loading speeds. But users are already deserting Explorer in droves; its global market share has dropped from more than 75 per cent per cent two years ago to just over 60 per cent before the ballot roll-out. And thanks to the ballot, Microsoft is being forced to compete with other browsers on a more level playing field.

Since the last week of February it has reportedly lost 1 per cent of UK users, and 2.5 per cent of French users.

Opera, the Norwegian company originally responsible for implementing the anti-trust suit, has benefited most from the ballot, claiming that downloads of its free browser have increased dramatically since the launch of the ballot box.

Firefox, says Lilly, has also put on users, but “we already get 100,000 new users organically every day, so an extra 150,000 over a week or two is meaningful but not hugely important”. Users who check the ballot box thoroughly will find a second page of seven browsers such as Avant, Flock and Slim, which even many tech-savvy users may not have heard of.

The key to the future of browsers may not be on desktops at all, but on mobile devices. In the next five years, in the view of many experts, more people will be connecting to their internet via their smartphones and tablets than via their desktops or laptops.

This will doubtless break Microsoft’s stranglehold, but it’s not necessarily beneficial to browser diversity: most mobile devices come with default browsers, including a Google-made browser on phones that use the company’s Android operating system.

Safari is the default browser for iPhone (and for the iPad, which is due for release this week in the US), though Opera last week submitted its “Opera Mini” application to Apple for approval. Could Apple countenance a browser war on its own mobile devices?

Mozilla, meanwhile, is hard at work on a version of Firefox for Android, which, like its desktop version, will vary from Chrome in its vital statistics. Chrome, for instance, strips back the browser furniture to a bare minimum at the edges of the screen; its near invisibility as you surf reflects Google’s ambitions to get everyone working continuously in the cloud – storing and interacting with their documents and data entirely online.

Firefox, on the other hand, emphasises its users’ security, which Lilly believes explains its popularity in privacy-conscious Europe (where it has an almost 40 per cent market share).

So which is better, the mighty Google’s Chrome or the more modest Mozilla’s Firefox? Most tech-watchers seem to agree they’re the two finest browsers on the market. Chrome has been around for just 18 months, and only formally released a version for Macs earlier this year.

Firefox’s age and experience – Lilly says that Firefox 4 is expected next year – means it has a more extensive suite of extensions and add-ons that allow users to customise their browser to suit their needs.

And of course, you may be concerned that Google already has too much of your personal information for comfort without installing the company’s software on your computer.

Tomorrow Dr Search the principal consultant at the Search Clinic will review the top 5 browsers.