Business

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, November 8, 2009 Technology notebook Microsoft tries to put more pop into Bing Microsoft Corp. is giving its MSN Web portal a long-overdue makeover and says it hopes the new site will funnel more people to Bing, the software maker’s search engine. Microsoft is ditching the heavy blue background and stack of tiny text and menus across the top of the page that have defined msn.com for a decade. The new site is cleaner, with a white background and simple, colorful links for “news,” “entertainment,” “sports,” “money,” “lifestyle” and “more” lined up across the top. But it’s still clearly a portal, filled with blocks of headlines. The most prominent real estate on the page is dominated by a slide show of the top five stories with big headlines and photos. Some of what appears on the MSN home page will be picked by editors looking for top stories. They’ll get an assist from new software that uses Bing to find hot topics just as they begin to simmer. Other stories on the home page will appear based on a Web surfer’s location or other details gleaned from his or her browsing behavior. Microsoft’s online services business is a money-losing venture, as advertising revenue has failed to make up for the money the software maker has poured into competing with Google Inc. in search. New music service could cut piracy A music service that plans to offer free song downloads said Monday that China’s largest search engine will send users to the service in a deal that could cut online music piracy. The free service, Qtrax, has licensing deals with all the major recording companies and their publishing units. The company plans to fund its royalty payments to artists and the music industry through advertising. Qtrax launches Thursday in Australia and New Zealand, which amounts to a world debut after several aborted launches and a 90-day U.S. preview in April. The service is scheduled to begin in China on Dec. 17. Under the deal announced Monday, users of some entertainment and music pages operated by China’s leading search engine, Baidu.com, will see a button allowing a download from Qtrax when they search for a song or artist that is in Qtrax’s catalog. If users follow through, an advertisement will appear on the music-playing software that transfers the song. While the deal does not cover searches from Baidu’s main page, Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz said he was told by Baidu that the offshoot sites generate millions of daily visits, “which is exciting enough for us.” Qtrax also has plans to launch in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan this year, then the U.K. in February and the U.S. in the first quarter of 2010, Klepfisz said. Best Buy: Get DVDs on the Net Best Buy Co. is trying to nudge consumers away from its stores’ DVD aisles by making it easier for them to rent and buy movies over high-speed Internet connections. The largest U.S. retailer of consumer electronics is setting up its digital delivery service in partnership with CinemaNow, which has deals with the major movie studios. The software making it possible to shop CinemaNow’s video library will be included on all the Web-connected devices sold in Best Buy’s more than 1,000 U.S. stores. That means consumers who buy flat-panel TVs, Blu-ray players, personal computers and mobile phones from Best Buy would be able to get downloads of videos the same day they are released on DVDs. The alliance marks the latest step away from the DVD format. Consumers are getting more ways of finding home entertainment with just a few clicks instead of traveling to a video rental store or waiting for a disc to be delivered through the mail. If you’re connected, you’re not isolated A new study confirms what your 130 Facebook friends and scores of Twitter followers may have already told you: The Internet and mobile phones are not linked to social isolation. Online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks, according to the study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The study refutes research earlier in the decade suggesting that people’s growing embrace of technology has come at the expense of close human connections. “Social isolation has not changed that much since 1985,” said Keith Hampton, the main author of the study professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. This means that very few adults — 6 percent of the population — say they have no one to talk to about important matters in their lives. Associated Press The 2008 survey of 2,512 adults did find that Americans’ core discussion networks — that group of people you count on being able to confide in — has gotten smaller in the past two decades. It’s down, on average, to about two people instead of three. They’ve also become less diverse because they contain fewer friends and more family members. This trend, however, was not linked to the use technology. It’s not the Internet’s fault you have fewer good friends. The Internet also hasn’t pulled people away from public places like parks, cafes and restaurants — just the opposite. The study, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points and accounted for differences because of age, education and other factors, also found that people now tend to use cell phones more than landlines to stay in touch with closest family and friends. The Associated Press READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. 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