The year 2011 was one year that we will all never forget. Even though they were all in the beginning of the year, the floods in Queensland and Brazil, the earthquakes in Christchurch and the tsunami in the north of Japan are still present in all of our minds. We also saw the death of a tech luminary, Steve Jobs; and the powerful News Corporation losing its influence over politicians in the UK after the phone hacking scandal took a drastic turn from celebrities to victims of crime.
So it turns out, our “Powered by” gets crude when I do it. Anyway, we cover the Verizon iPhone 4, Vodafone’s massive security fail and MySpace being sold off? Oh, and find out how ChatRoulette (remember that) is making some dough from an unlikely source.
As part of a global restructuring plan, MySpace is to close their offices in Australia and will axe about 500 employees worldwide – or 47 percent of their entire global workforce – as speculation arise that MySpace might be sold by News Corp.
Struggling social network MySpace is said to be axing 550 to 600 jobs of its just over 1,000 employees; with the announcement said to be tomorrow.
The large job culls will significantly affect its international operations as the company tries to rebrand itself from a social network to an entertainment hub. It’s Chinese operations is also being reported to have laid off 30 of its staff – two-thirds of its staff presence in the country – and its CEO has left the company.
So it appears that Apple have introduced one type on insect into the iTune Store, MySpace gets in bed with facebook and is Microsoft Breaking Up?
We also find out that the russians are making their own distribution of Linux and we find 100 naked pictures of people.
Invitations have emerged of a joint announcement between MySpace (or, my______, according to their new name) and Facebook with rumours of a possible tie-up between the two companies, even a possible MySpace ‘throwing in the towel’ to Facebook.
Yes, that’s right.. Terence is on holidays in Rome! So everyone at TECHGEEK.com.au is partying like crazy. We talk about the new Windows Phone 7, The Android ‘dude’ problem, #newtwitter, the iPhone app that allows you to spy and much much more.
Yes, apparently Google is into shooting photos of dead people as photos of the dead appeared on Google Street View. Ouch. As well, Motorola gets sued by Microsoft, Facebook lets you download everything you ever uploaded or wrote on Facebook, and MySpace brings out a craptastic new logo.
Disney has nominated Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer for the largest social networking site Facebook, to become part of its Board of Directors as an independent board member.
“Sheryl has been at the forefront of a technological revolution that’s opened up a world of new possibilities for consumers and which has greatly affected the way we do business. Her unique insight, born of great practical experience, will be of considerable value to Disney’s shareholders,” President and CEO Robert Iger said in a press statement.
Last night, we reported on Yahoo’s top searches; and now, its Google’s turn. Google has brought out its search data and compiled the “fastest rising” searches for this year, and are very different to what Yahoo users were searching. Topping the global scale was, obviously, Michael Jackson; while social networking sites Facebook, Tuenti and Twitter placed second, third and forth respectively. Rounding out the top five was the search term “sanalika”.
MySpace – it was (and to some still is) the biggest social networking site of once upon a time. Nobody was cool unless you had it – employers, potential co-workers and friends at school all bragged of using it. Facebook was just thought of as a “it’ll never grow” site and Twitter was no where to be heard of. Well, times are-a-changing.
MySpace is said to have let go up to 45 employees from the company, with sources saying that the figure might be smaller, according to TechCrunch. MySpace has refused to comment on the matter, and did not say if was from a cancelled project, just general layoffs or performance-based cuts.
The revamped MySpace Music portal has now said that it has now streamed over 1 billion songs after launching on September 25. This is a pretty impressive milestone, especially when it took iTunes 3 years to get to 1 billion. But, it isn’t fair to make them compete, since songs on MySpace are free to stream, while on iTunes they cost $1.69.
MySpace is set to launch its new music service, which allows you to buy music from the site, among other things, tonight to everyone – in the U.S. of course.
Following Hulu, another News Corporation property with NBC Universal, it has been locked down to only U.S. users only.
If you are like me – an addict of social networking sites – then this site is a must-look.
Ping.FM will allow you to post the same message on your friends over at Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, MySpace, and many other services. While it does not say anything to cure that crippling addiction to social networking – well for me at least – it is a very good Web 2.0 service.