Microsoft Sued by Bing! (And We Don’t Mean Its Search Engine)

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(ChannelWeb) Just as Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) worked out a compromise to its long-running conflict with the European Union, it now faces the prospect of legal action from a pair of small companies the software giant has allegedly wronged.

Last week Microsoft admitted that a Chinese contract developer, hired by MSN China to develop its Juku microblogging site, copied code from Plurk, a competing site. Although Microsoft has apologized for the fiasco, Plurk has hinted that it might take legal action.

Now comes word that a small design firm in St. Louis has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming it owns trademark rights to the “Bing!” name Microsoft chose earlier this year for its overhauled search engine.

Last week Bing! Information Designs LLC filed the lawsuit against Microsoft in the 22nd Judicial Circuit of the Missouri Circuit Court in St. Louis charging Microsoft with trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Bing! (the St. Louis one) maintains that it has been using the name since 2000. A story in The Seattle Times on Friday quoted the company’s attorney, Tony Simon, as saying that since Microsoft rebranded its search engine with the Bing! name earlier this year, clients of the St. Louis Bing! are confused and think the design firm is somehow affiliated with Microsoft.

The company is seeking “actual and punitive damages,” including having Microsoft pay for advertising to reverse the confusion the software vendor has created, according to a Dow Jones Newswire story. The suit does not specify a dollar amount for the alleged damages.

Microsoft spokespersons have said they don’t believe the suit has any merit. Continue reading →

Facebook policy upsets millions

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NEW DELHI (InfoTech): Millions of Netizens suddenly face the prospect of having key personal information and posts made accessible to everyone, un

less they consciously monitor their privacy settings.

Facebook, the world’s largest onlinesocial networking site, recently announced that in order to encourage members to share more information on the internet, it has upgraded its privacy settings, making several categories of information of its users visible by default to everyone.

Why this assumes significance is because Facebook allows its users to chose their level of privacy, by letting them restrict access to either friends, friends of friends or everyone. It’s a feature that has helped the site gain many users and is in line with its mantra of “control what you want to share.” Continue reading →

American Apparel Grabs YouTube’s Long Tail

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Retailer uses niche clips — including one that shows a skateboarding dog — for ad targeting

(ADWEEK) One of YouTube’s greatest challenges with advertisers has been the notion that it’s a repository for clips of dogs riding skateboards. But one marketer, at least, sees this as a plus.

American Apparel has been targeting ads to over 100 videos of pets, including a clip of a skateboarding canine, to promote its line of dog clothing. The Los Angeles-based brand chose the videos based on suggestions from employees.

“It would be hard to do an advertisement on the back page of LA Weekly or a fashion magazine for the dog T-shirt,” noted Ryan Holiday, a Web marketing executive at American Apparel.

YouTube hopes more advertisers will follow American Apparel’s lead.

The venue has little problem drumming up interest in its front-page and marquee placements, but it needs to entice advertisers deeper into the site to pair their brands with long-tail content. Knowing some companies are still uncomfortable with category-wide targeting — YouTube has a pets and animals channel, for example — the Google-owned property began offering specific video targeting earlier this month. The initiative lets advertisers build custom video lists from among the clips entered in YouTube’s partner program. Continue reading →

NHL’s Web Video Gets More Social

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(ADWEEK) The National Hockey League has pulled back the curtains on a new video player, replete with more original content and more sharing features designed to further infiltrate the Web’s top social networks.

The new NHL VideoCenter product, developed by the IPTV tech provider NeuLion, essentially replaces NHL Network Online, NHL.com’s original video platform.

Besides game highlights and interviews, VideoCenter offers fans three new channels: NHL Shootout Channel, which deliver full-length coverage of games that end with shootouts; NHL Press Room, for live press conferences; and NHL Library, an archive of clips.

VideoCenter also promises a larger video screen, faster loading times and more useful search, according to league officials.

Besides serving as a destination, the NHL sees VideoCenter as a way to enhance its presence on social media, clearly a league priority. The new player allows fans to share video clips with friends on Facebook, Twitter and Digg. The NHL already maintains channels on the top video sites YouTube and Hulu, and continues to create original video series for advertisers like Timberland and EA.

“NHL.com is the first place fans look to see the best game highlights; live and feature videos; and original programming focused on the NHL,” said NHL svp of creative Andre Mika. “NHL VideoCenter expands the volume of video content offered on NHL.com and greatly enhances and streamlines the user interface, creating the Web’s best destination for NHL video.”

Cutting Tiger Woods Generates Positive Buzz for Brands

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Before controversy engulfed Tiger Woods, big brands built buzz by putting the iconic golfer in their ads. Today, some marketers are getting positive responses from consumers by cutting their ties to the troubled sports legend as the media firestorm over his personal conduct continues to rage.

So says the Brandweek Buzz Report by market research firm YouGov. The weekly consumer survey analyzes the most talked about brands based on buzz: If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive or negative?; and reputation: Would you be proud or embarrassed to work for this brand?

YouGov interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample. Respondents are drawn from an online panel of 1.5 million individuals. A score can range from 100 to -100 and is compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback. Continue reading →

Video: Canon EOS 7D gatling gun shooting 8 FPS of awesome

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We’ll be back later with more impressions, but we figured you’d like to see Canon’s new EOS 7D in a video quickie, live at IFA. It’s short, just a minute, but enough time to show off the 7D’s built-in digital level, 19-point autofocus, and a naked shutter blasting though 8 frames per second. Now man…

Video: Canon EOS 7D gatling gun shooting 8 FPS of awesome.

Introducing a Twitter for Credit Card Purchases

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(NYT) Philip Kaplan earned notoriety and profit a decade ago with a site that chronicled the implosion of the Internet bubble. Now he is back with a project that seems sure to get attention again: Blippy a soon-to-start online social network that lets you share details of your credit card purchases with friends or strangers.

Mr. Kaplan’s earlier venture, an obscenely named Web site that parodied FastCompany magazine, chronicled the dot-com carnage in 2000 and 2001. Though that site trashed failing start-ups, Mr. Kaplan was an entrepreneur himself: he made money by devising a self-service tool that allowed advertisers to place ads on the site. The tool worked so well that in 2002, he spun it off to create AdBrite, which places ads on more than 100,000 affiliated sites and had 2008 revenue of $31.6 million. Continue reading →

Canon vs. Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

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Canon vs. Nikon – which one? It’s a common question that comes up when consumers are comparing digital SLR cameras.

These two companies were the first to make the leap from film to digital, and their initial presence in the market make them the dominant players.

Today Canon and Nikon constantly battle for the top spot in the SLR market, while Olympus, Pentax, Sony, Panasonic and Sigma duke it out for a position in third.

If you pay attention to the digital SLR press releases, you’ll notice a pattern: when either Canon or Nikon announce a new camera designed to capture some niche aspect of the market, the other company is soon to release a camera to compete.

This page is designed to help you get a handle on the current state of Canon vs. Nikon digital SLR cameras, with a focus on consumer SLRs, not those made for professionals.

Read more >>

Canon XSi Or Nikon D3000

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Canon’s Rebel XSi (450D) is already on the market and awaiting the arrival of its new Nikon nemesis. Which one will dominate?

The Nikon/Canon debate will not abate with the coming of the new D3000. Nikon proponents will line up on the Nikon side while Canon enthusiasts will take their stance on the other side of the line. It’s kind of like the Republicans vs Democrats or the Auburn War Eagles vs the Alabama Crimson Tide. You pick your favorite rivalry. Your side will be better no matter what.

My money is on both to be winners. If you buy a Canon Rebel XSi or a Nikon D3000 you will be getting an awesome piece of photographic equipment. The technology keeps improving and the price continues to either stay the same or come down a bit with each new entry level DSLR. Continue reading →

Flash AS3 – Timer Class

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Here is a quick timer code for you to use within your project. I know it may seem simple but its usually the simple things that causes most headaches. So this is for those folks that constantly need reminders.

[as]// We need to import the utils package
import flash.utils.*;

// Create a new Timer object with a delay of 1000 ms
var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(1000);
myTimer.addEventListener(“timer”, timedFunction);

// Start the timer
myTimer.start();

// Function will be called every second
function timedFunction(eventArgs:TimerEvent)
{
trace(“Timer fired ” + myTimer.currentCount + ” times.”);
}[/as]

Check out the AS 3 docs to see all of the available properties and methods of this great new class.