GeoCities Is Closing

Are you a GeoCities' loyal user? If yes, you should immediately download your files to your local computer or move your site on GeoCities to Yahoo! Web Hosting.

Exactly on October 26, 2009, GeoCities will be closed . And for those of you who have been using this free website hosting service will not be able to access your GeoCities account.

Yahoo! itself already send email about the Final Notice for its users to quickly move the hosting or download users's files in Yahoo!. If you are late to transfer or download these files then those files will be lost forever and can not be recovered. So make haste to retrieve your files which are still on GeoCities.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo Versus Google

Three leading technology companies make a joint-effort to fight against Google that is going to create a biggest virtual library in the world. Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo will sign an Open Book Alliance pioneered by the Internet Archive.

They oppose provisions of law that can make Google as the main source in most online activities. "Google attempts to make a library-system-monopoly," said the founder of Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, to BBC News television station , Friday 21 August 2009.

Gmail Gets Top 3

Although still in a beta version, Gmail is able to show very good performance. The email service owned by Google is able to penetrate the top 3 position in the United States.

Latest position in July, issued in the US. by ComScore, Google takes third position with a number of unique visitor up to 37 million. By that number, it replaced the position of AOL, which only accounted for 36.4 million.

After grabbing the third position, Gmail has another ambition, that is replacing the Windows Live Hotmail, which currently is in second place. ComScore said Hotmail successfully has 47 million unique visitors in the US.

However, the competition only occurs in the middle class. As for the top of the electronic messaging service, Yahoo still occupied. The gap between the first and the second or the third is very wide. The Yahoo users are 106 million people.

However, the achievement of Gmail has been very great in the last July. ComScore noted, until July Gmail has a fantastic growth of 25 percent and defeated AOL which had fallen to 22 percent.

Yahoo 360 Closed Soon

Feeling unlucky to compete with Facebook, Yahoo will soon close the social network, Yahoo 360. According to its plan, this site will be closed in the coming July.

In fact, Yahoo 360 has been planned to close at the beginning of the 2009. Somehow, finally the closing is eventually delayed until the end of the mid-2009, precisely later on July 17. Thus as cited from PC World, Sunday (31/5/2009).

According to the Yahoo, the service is intentionally closed. Because since for the first time getting introduced in October 2007, Yahoo 360 has been less attracted by the majority of Yahoo users. Moreover, during the beta, there have been many criticisms to this application.

"At this time there is a feature profile on Yahoo 360 preferred by the user. However, we will explore new ways of combining and expressing yourself through your profile," said Yahoo spokesman Daniels.

Besides, many other lacks of the Yahoo 360 such as, it does not give users the rights to download their contents and move them to other popular blogs such as WordPress, blog owned by Google, Blogger.

Basically, Yahoo 360 is a communication portal that combines the features of social networking web sites, blogs, and the photo sharing. A user can create a personal web site, share photos from Yahoo Photos, maintain blog, various local reviews, profile information, and see online friends.

Google Will Take Over Twitter?

Biz Stone one of the founders of microblogging site Twitter, denied hot rumor that saying the possibility of the search engine giant Google takes over for the site.

Stone says that Twitter will continue to become an independent company. "It is not surprising that Twitterr has been involved in discussions with other companies," Stone said in a post on his blog site.

On his blog post titled 'Sometimes We talk', Stone said that his company has conducted discussions with other companies on Friday. Stone did not specifically mention which company to talk with Twitter.

However, Stone continues, that the idea of Twitter is "to build a company that can generate profit, and independent." He admitted that the hype rumor about Twitter takeover by Google.

Stone said that his own inbox has been flooded by such questions. However, Stone always declines. "We just started this company, currently we have 30 employees," said Stone.

The company is now looking for opportunities to work together with other firms for a strategic advantage for Twitter to reach their goals. However, whether Google will become one of strategic partners, it still needs to be discerned.

Google itself refused to comment on the issue. However, the issue has said that the Twitter founder Evan Williams and Stone have met with Google to discuss the possibility of acquisitions.

The two people ever had experience working in the environment of Google because their company Pyra Labs, which makes the Blogger, a blog service, was taken over by Google in 2003.

Acquisition of Twitter by Google, will actually provide for the rapid progress of Twitter, either in the case of search engine and in the case of a profit through online advertising.

Big Changes on Yahoo Management

The new Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz,is bringing clear impacts. Bartz even now prepares to make large-scale renovation on the structure of Yahoo management in order to be competitive in the internet business.

"I launched a new management structure that I believe make Yahoo grow more rapidly. OAll is simplified. We will make decisions more quickly and on the customers," said Bartz as quoted from the AFP,Friday (27/2/2009). 

One of the indications, Chief Financial Officer of Yahoo, Blake Jorgensen quit from his position. Bartz also chose a new executive as head of North American region. While the position of Chief Marketing Officer will be filled by Elisa Steele starting in March. 

"This is a good sign. He chose people that he wanted and kicked out those who can not work with him. You should see a CEO selecting people who are loyal to him," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group's. 

Bartz also strengthens customer service by creating a Consumer Advocacy Group. In addition to responding the needs of consumers, this group is also expected to learn what the market's desired products are.

Bartz has analyzed what happens to this company and why it has been in haste in the competition. He surprised with some of the complexities in Yahoo. Bartz said that Yahoo failed to play the role. 

At this time, Yahoo is far behind Gooogle in online search business . Google has 61 percent of the market and Yahoo 21 percent.