But no, Pakastan has ordered all ISP’s to block YouTube.

From Yahoo news: (more…)

MySpace is trying to use personal data on the networks to hyper-target ads, and the jury is still out on whether that’s working. Facebook thought it could get “friends” to market their favorite products to each other, but Beacon blew up in its face.

Ian Schafer, founder and CEO of interactive ad firm Deep Focus says things won’t change soon. SAI spoke to Schafer, best known for online campaigns for 20th Century Fox and HBO, about the social networks’ struggle to sync up with advertisers, and vice versa.

Silicon Alley Insider: It seems everyone believes social networks’ advertising potential is huge. So why have their recent attempts been so clumsy?

Ian Schafer: Advertisers don’t have a clear grasp of how to advertise in social media, and social media doesn’t know how to sell it. Consumers react differently to advertising in social environments, but big media buyers aren’t trained to think that way. (more…)

Not very much work, that is. Today’s New York Times delivers a nice, sprightly memo about a 29-year-old coder based in Vancouver, Canada, who managed to put together a dating website, dubbed Plenty of Fish, which, because it is purportedly a self-sustaining entity, requires of its owner, Markus Frind, only about 10 hours per week of attention and care.

And funnily enough, it’s hardly a design in perfectionism. The site, purportedly begun as an educational exercise for Mr Frind meant to help him get closely acquainted with the programming language ASP.NET, is quite rough around the edges. (more…)

Sedo has secured some of the most sought after generic Christmas co.uk Internet domain names for auction, including christmas.co.uk, christmasbreaks.co.uk, christmasgifts.co.uk, christmashampers.co.uk and stuffing.co.uk. The auction closes on Tuesday 27th November at 12pm GMT.

The full list of the premium Christmas co.uk Internet domain names can be viewed by visiting www.sedo.co.uk. Customers can then place and track bids on their chosen Christmas co.uk Internet domain names, online. (more…)

A recent post on Tech Crunch talks about how “two top Hollywood movie studios, a major record label, a variety of very well known consumer brands, and a number of different startups, both domestic and international” use less-than-kosher techniques to boost views of their clips on YouTube.

My first reaction was, no wonder most “top Hollywood movie studios, major record labels, varieties of very well known consumer brands, and a number of different startups, both domestic and international” suck and fail to succeed following the launch thereof, because the hype that preceded and surrounds their products and services is illegitimate and fake. (more…)

The $240 million price Microsoft paid for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook demonstrates just how badly the world’s largest software maker wanted to deepen its relationship with a startup that doesn’t even have $200 million in annual revenue.

By sealing the deal Wednesday, Microsoft finally trumped Google after losing previous high-stakes bidding battles involving a stake in AOL and ownership of online video sharing pioneer YouTube and Internet ad service DoubleClick Inc. (more…)

“We were chatting with people we didn’t know, which was our first mistake, and someone asked for our personal information,” she said.

“A week later, he sent some inappropriate pictures to one of my friends. We were all scared, and told our parents, who contacted the authorities.” (more…)

“The shares have increased more than sevenfold from their initial public offering price of $85, bringing the nine-year-old company’s market value to $190 billion - eclipsing bigger, more mature businesses like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Coca-Cola Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. It took 10 1/2 months for Google’s stock to leap from $500 to $600 and more than a year for the journey from $400 to $500.

The shares hurdled $300 in June 2005 after passing the $100 and $200 thresholds in 2004,” writes AP. (more…)

The site, which is in invitation-only beta, gives you the option to leave your profile open to your friends, allowing them to make changes and add modules like widgets or games.

We played with the service at the Wired News office, and took turns jokingly adding pictures of unicorns and kittens to each other’s profiles.

This setting is the default for all new profiles, and when you invite a friend to join, you’re encouraged to design a page for the prospective member by adding colors, text, RSS feeds and content modules. (more…)

Three were sacked and six resigned after managers at Neath Port Talbot council found some staff were spending up to two hours a day on the website.

Union officials have blamed bosses for “putting temptation in their way” - by allowing access to the internet.

The council said it carried out an investigation after officers spent a “significant time” on the internet. (more…)