Microsoft launches two new server solutions

From arstechnica.com, we come to know that Microsoft launches two new servers for businesses. I think this will be a great initiatives in this IT industry.
After extensive research and feedback from businesses around the world, Microsoft Corporation has announced the Windows Essential Server Solutions family of products, built on Windows Server 2008, which includes Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008.
The products integrate the technologies of Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Bob Kelly, corporate vice president at Microsoft, explained the company's target audience for the new products: "There are 31.9 million small businesses and 1.2 million midsize companies worldwide in need of powerful IT solutions, and they typically have very small IT staffs, or none at all." Apparently these businesses need more than just a free website creator.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 (code name Cougar) is aimed at organizations with up to 50 PCs. It provides increased security and protection with dramatically simplified server and PC backup technologies, and one-year trial subscriptions to Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server Small Business Edition and the new Windows Live OneCare for Server. Small Business Server 2008 also integrates with Microsoft Office Live Small Business and with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. IT managers and technology consultants should find it easier to deploy, setup, and administer as it includes an administration console, new monitoring across servers and client PCs, Windows Server Update Services, and customizable reports.

Windows Essential Business Server 2008 is aimed at midsize organizations with up to 250 desktops. It provides a unified console for management of key workloads and product licensing and combines the technologies of Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, System Center Essentials 2007, the next version of Internet Security and Acceleration Server and, in the Premium Edition, SQL Server 2008 technology.

Domain name for Asia is available now

The great news for the people of Asia is that .asia is now available for registration in internet.

According to BBC news -

DotAsia, the organisation overseeing the registration, is expecting huge demand for the first domain name extension for the Asia Pacific region.
But some in the industry are concerned about the proliferation of domain name suffixes in recent years.
While others think that the business of buying domain names has become more about protecting brands than promoting them.
Cybersquatting
Work to create the .asia domain began in 2000 with the DotAsia Organisation winning official approval to set up the domain in 2006.
A so-called sunrise period, where companies can reserve domains to match their trademarks, has been ongoing since October.
Now the process has been opened up for anyone to register and the first .asia domains will go live on the internet in March.
Thomas Herbert, a product manager from UK hosting firm and registrar Hostway, believes the nature of buying domain names has changed, largely due to the lucrative businesses of cybersquatting.
"People are willing to pay big money for a domain and with domain name reselling on the increase, it has become a matter of protecting your trademark," he said.
As well as cybersquatting there can be legitimate battles over suffixes.
For example, in the sunrise period for the .eu domain, there were some 95,000 conflicting claims for domains.
The www.polo.eu domain was applied for by car maker Volkswagen, fashion house Ralph Lauren and sweet manufacturer Nestle.
To limit squabbles and cybersquatting this time around, the DotAsia Organisation, has put in place certain rules.
Companies must be already registered in the Asia/Pacific region to qualify and if there are any conflicts of interest, the domain will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Such restrictions are likely to increase as more domain names come online, thinks Mr Herbert.
Leona Chen, spokeswoman for the DotAsia Organisation, anticipated plenty of interest and hoped the suffix could have as significant an impact in Asia as .com has globally.
"We are ready for something big. All of our people and systems are in place and we look forward to the commencement of the .asia landrush," she said.
Too many?
UK domain name registrar NetNames pointed out that the number of firms registering interest is considerably lower than for the sell-off of the eu domain in April 2006.
"Only 30,780 applications have been filed for .asia domain names so far compared with 330,000 at the same point in the launch of the .eu domain name," said Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer of NetNames.
He advised firms to get onboard quickly.
"Once it starts, there's far less protection for companies' trademarks and its open season on the .asia domain name for cybersquatters, online speculators and competitors," he said.
According to a report from Nominet, the overseer of the .uk registry, there is an active market in buying, selling and storing domain names, with sales regularly exceeding £100,000 and peak values reaching more than £1m.
While some of these resales are legitimate there was also a big market for speculators, said Nominet chief executive Lesley Cowley.
She was concerned that a sudden leap in the number of domain names could leave companies confused as to which ones they need to register for.
"The current process being developed by Icann (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) means there could be a couple of hundred or even thousands of new suffixes to bid for by the end of the year," she said.
The .asia domain name extends to some 70 countries, from the Middle East to Australia. 60% of the world's population lives within the Asia-Pacific region and there are 400 million internet users.
Other regional suffixes for Africa and Latin America are expected to follow.

Google starts online video store for 1st time

The co-founder of Google.com co-founder Larry Page announced the service at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This was a great news for entire web industry.

Google extends web business day by day and it becomes a monopolist in this industry.



According to BBC news-





Google is the latest company to explore the idea of selling video on the net following Apple, who led the way with its iTunes online store.








Pay to view

Competition in the burgeoning online video arena is shaping up to be fierce.
Others like Microsoft and Yahoo are also getting involved in offering video via the web.
Much of the talk at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is about gadgets of all shapes and sizes that can connect via the net to download video.
Google has been offering video for free over the internet for about a year. But this is the first time it will enable its users to pay for premium content.
"It lets anyone sell video," said Mr Page announcing the Google Video Store. "The content producers can decide what to charge."
Some 3,000 items will be available to rent or download and watch in Google's new desktop video player.


Blockbuster TV


As part of the service, the search giant has done a deal with CBS to offer some of its big blockbuster hits such as CSI and Survivor for $1.99 in the US.
CBS is also making available its archive of programs, among them Star Trek and I Love Lucy.
Details about the service outside the US are sketchy. Mr Page said he expected different content to be available in different parts of the world, depending on rights issues.
"The rights for video are really complicated so generally you are going to see video that is licensed for particular countries," he said.
The video will be available to download for Windows or the Mac, as well as for the Sony PlayStation Portable and Apple iPod.



Beyond the browser



The move towards paid-for video downloads was pioneered by Apple last year when it introduced an iPod video player and shows from ABC, NBC and others on its iTunes store.
Web giants like Yahoo and Google are trying to break out of the PC browser to offer their software and services on a plethora of devices.
At CES, Yahoo announced free software that would let viewers use the TV screen to search and watch the more than one million video clips in its video search service.
Microsoft is also looking to expand to the TV. At the Vegas techfest, it revealed a deal with Sky to offer content from the British satellite broadcaster and make it available through Windows software.
During his presentation, Mr Page also introduced a free service called Google Pack. This allows users to install software from a range of companies from a single download.
Included are Google's desktop, instant messaging and Google Earth mapping programs as well as the Firefox browser, Adobe's PDF reader and Norton anti-virus software from Symantec.
Mr Page used his platform at CES to make a plea for gadget makers to agree to common standards so that devices would work with each other seamlessly and use a standard power supply.

TrafficJam.com Is Now Live in internet

last night I recieved a mail from Blogrush founders. They says-

We're excited to announce that we finally released TrafficJam.com in public beta -- it's using LIVE DATA from the BlogRush Network. In fact, some of your blog posts may be ranked on TrafficJam.com right now!

We'd appreciate your helping in getting the word out about TrafficJam.com's release. The more exposure the site gets the more it benefits YOU and other users of BlogRush -- because it will drive traffic to members' blogs along with the widget itself.

So please take a moment to mention it on your blog. Your blog readers will appreciate knowing about this great resource!
You can even link to a specific topic category. For example, if you write a blog about "Parenting" just post a link that goes directly to the latest post rankings for the Parenting category. You'll find links to specific category rankings in the upper right 'box' on TrafficJam.com.

The site will update every 24 hours initially and then move towards hourly updates; we want to find the right balance of frequency so visitors don't miss too many new posts if they keep coming back to the site.This is just one addition of many we have planned to help drive more traffic to your blog!
Here’s Why You Should Definitely Visit TrafficJam.com, Bookmark It, And Visit Often…For marketers, this is the ultimate research tool. You can monitor blogs by niche and keep up with what type of posts are getting the most interest across the Web. This will make it incredibly easy for you to know what type of blog posts you should be making to get more traffic, interest, and popularity for your own blog.
Now you’ll never run out of ideas for new blog posts!This research data can help you identify untapped keywords and other opportunities.This site is essentially a LIVE HEADLINE TESTING MACHINE!!! (by topic)You can use ideas from the data to increase click-rates on AdWords ads and more.

You can use TrafficJam.com to find great blog posts for your niche. You can share links to these posts with your readers and they’ll appreciate it. (The nature of the blogosphere.)You can also discover some new blogs in your niche that you never knew existed. These can turn into potential joint venture partners, or simply just another site to occasionally share some traffic and links.
You’ll want to consider participating (properly, of course) on their blog comments to drive traffic to your blog.But either way, TrafficJam.com can save you TONS of your time and constantly ’show you’ what your target market is most interested in at any given time.
TrafficJam.com is powered by the BlogRush Network. It uses some unique technology to analyze millions of blog post title impressions, average click-rates, session times, and more to come up with it’s live ‘ranking’ system.
We’re still tweaking our algorithm but it has already proven to be a fantastic “filter” to determine the most popular and interesting blog posts (by topic) from across the entire network. (Which continues to add new blogs everyday.)
This was a major piece to the BlogRush puzzle that took a lot longer to develop than originally planned. But this is yet another ‘addition’ to help BlogRush members get more free traffic to their blogs.
Some people were disappointed by the traffic results they received when testing BlogRush, and it’s completely understandable…And as promised, we’re working hard to improve things.
TrafficJam.com is just one of many services we have planned to help our users drive more free traffic to their blogs. And we’re not done yet.So go check out TrafficJam.com. Bookmark it and prepare to visit often to keep up with your niche.
Initially we’re only going to be updating the rankings about once per day — but that will soon move towards an hourly update.We don’t want the site to update too frequently or users will miss out on certain posts. So we’re trying to find the right balance of how often to update the rankings.
Want your posts to appear on TrafficJam.com? If you have the BlogRush widget installed on your blog it will happen automatically when any of your posts ’score’ well with TJ’s algorithm.A big ‘key’ for scoring well, which is the same key to get traffic from BlogRush, is to learn to write powerful, yet specific blog post TITLES. Poke around TJ and notice the titles.

Almost all of them are very SPECIFIC.For example, rather than having a post say, “Today Was A Really Bad Day” it’s more effective if it says, “Why I Almost Smacked My Boss Today” or “Ever Split Your Pants At Work?” etc. etc.Compelling, interesting, specific titles are what get people to CLICK. Not only on the BlogRush Network but across the Web in general.
Write more effective blog post titles and you’ll also get more traffic from Google and the other search engines — because people will be more likely to click on your titles when they show up in the results.
Go Check It Out!http://www.trafficjam.com

MySpace Developer Platform: coming soon

From: http://mashable.com , we come to know the great news for Myspace users. Here I publish the complete story:

MySpace has just announced that they will be launching their developer platform on February 5th. You can pre-register now by going to http://developer.myspace.com/ (requires login).



Earlier this evening, I spoke with Amit Kapur, who the company is also announcing has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer and will oversee the platform. While MySpace may be a little late to the platform party, it’s clear that they have been closely watching developments in the space and will be addressing many of the growing pains that chief rival Facebook has dealt with from the get-go; most notably privacy, monetization, and data ownership.


On the privacy front, Kapur tells me that the user experience will be a “top priority” and that the company will avoid the feed spam issues that have plagued “other players in the space” (he wouldn’t mention Facebook by name, but he didn’t have to). Additionally, don’t expect anything like Facebook Beacon to be a part of the MySpace Developer Platform.


Instead, MySpace plans to help developers monetize their applications, potentially through a revenue share program. Kapur believes that his company is “differentiated by our robust and mature monetization platform,” and he wants developers to be able to take advantage of it. This means that unlike Facebook, where we have dozens of ad networks competing for inventory on applications, MySpace may play an active role, presumably utilizing its large ad sales force to help developers get premium revenue.


From a technology perspective, Kapur says most of the specific details will be released on the 5th, but he did emphasize that the company has maintained an open relationship with widget developers, and wants them to be able to use data from MySpace in their applications, potentially including your friend’s list. With Facebook moving to allow developers to host applications on third-party sites and DataPortability continuing to gain traction, this seems like the only way to go.


Finally, Kapur told me that the MySpace Developer Program will support Google OpenSocial from day one. This may provide a much needed boost for OpenSocial, which has received criticism for offering very little in the way of tangible products since being announced.
Overall, it sounds like MySpace has been paying attention to what’s working on other social networking developer platforms and what user’s ultimately want. We’ll see if they can deliver the goods when they show the rest of their hand next week.

Recent comments:
1.
Great news for the widget economy! It will be interesting to see whether Open Social actually delivers on its primary goal: simplifying widget deployment to all the different platforms. Right now SplashCast deploys widgets to Facebook, Bebo (via their FB "clone" platform, which is not a perfect plug-n-play with FB), and soon to MySpace. But MySpace API will almost certainly be a superset of the Open Social API, which means we will still need unique deployments for MySpace, LinkedIn, Hi5, Orkut, etc. Let's hope that Open Social evolves quickly enough so that it does not fall too far behind the individual social network implementations. We will need a very strong, influential standards body for this to happen. How likely is that?

2.
Incredible! I think MySpace was smart by holding back. We knew they were. I think Facebook was a guinea pig for them in certain respects. MySpace has already proved themselves when it comes to innovation. They could have dived right in and opened up the code a long time ago IF they wanted to. I thought it showed maturity by refraining MySpace is all grown up now...lol.