Yahoo Japan profit rises 20 pct

Yahoo Japan Corp., has gained quarterly profit of 20 percent as it signed up more users to its auction site and fascinated more stores on its online mall.

Net income rose to 15.2 billion yen ($125 million) in the quarter ended December 31 against 12.7 billion yen a year earlier. Its predicted profit range was 13.7 to 15.2 billion yen. The result compared with a standard forecast of 15.4 billion yen from four analyst polled by Reuters Estimates.

Yahoo: Executing for shareholder value

Terry Semel, CEO Yahoo, presented his company’s Q4 2006 results to Wall Street yesterday. Semel’s principal message: Yahoo is on path to offer increased shareholder value in 2007 and beyond.

Semel began with Yahoo objectives announced at the Q3 earnings call:

• To improve search monetization.
• To widen our lead in graphical advertising.
• To seize the opportunity in emerging areas such as social media, video and mobile.

The future opening for Yahoo and the industry as a whole is more than ever. The Internet is developing at a fast pace, projected with some 800 million more users predicted to come online by 2010 and online advertising expected to grow to $55 billion by the same year.

Google Groups Gives Groups Their Own Home on the Web

The latest version of Google Groups offers your group its own easy-to-build home on the web for sharing and maintaining information, with advanced tools for creating customized web pages, which help’s your group with own unique look and feel. You may run a forum for IT lovers, sharing the latest reviews from your book or wine club, posting practice plans and team information for your soccer league or planning a neighborhood barbecue; Google Groups offers you a colorful, central place to collect photos, documents, links, messages, and much more over time.

For those people who like active discussion, Google Group continues to offer a variety of options to keep up with a conversation. From the Google Group space on the web, you can post, read and reply to the posted message.

Smile, Sydney: You’re on Google Maps!

Google is now on the way to prepare some close-up aerial shots of the fair city on Google Maps – The shots would be taken from low flying plane; Google has secured permission to leap down as low as 600 meters (approximately 1,970 feet).

This is the first time Google is trying to do anything on this scale, according to the SMA’s report: Lars Rasmussen, lead of engineering for Google Australia and one of the head engineers for Google Maps. She further says that the images would add a few more zoom levels to the local Google maps and will give three or four times more detailed than currently accessible Australian terrain on Google Maps.

BBC in talks with Google over content deal

BBC interested in promoting its programming via YouTube and Google Video; it is just a deal same as the one with major US broadcaster, including CBS, where content is supported on the video sharing sites by way of branded channels.

BBC further considers showing adverts to non-UK visitors in a bid to raise more revenue, to some people an improbable move, which could raise as much as £105 million per year for the corporation. However, BBC needs to face the opposition from Ofcom, who says making content accessible online could have negative impact on the broadcaster’s internet-focused competitors.

Google to run video ads from BMG, Warner

Google Inc, the search giant announced last week that it would expand testing of its much-probable video advertising system by working with two major music labels to implant video ads on web sites, which make’s money running them.

Google said it will further distribute advertising beside videos from Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group over its AdSense online ad system to Web site publishers in coming four-week test now underway.

Yahoo! keeps Reuters on message

Reuters is poised to announce a partnership with Yahoo!, which would give the news provider’s rumor-hungry customers millions of possible new contacts through instant messaging. It is used globally by more than 90,000 brokers and city analysts to trade tip-odds, scandal and strategies, Reuters Messaging would be restored this week as the London based news group teams up its game against Bloomberg.

Reuters by now has contract with AOL and Microsoft’s MSN Messenger but it sees the tie-up with Yahoo! as a coup. It means users of the Reuters messaging system could chat with an expected 70 million subscribers to the Yahoo! version. Reuters David Gurle leads the messaging development group, says it is fundamental to the FTSE 100 group’s wider business goals.

Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Team with Rights Groups to Form Web Conduct Code

Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Vodafone are in talks with human rights and press freedom groups to assemble an Internet code of conduct to protect free speech and privacy of today’s Web users.

The participating group announced that they aim to produce a code by the end of this year that would respond to trends such as the increased jailing of Internet journalists, monitoring of legitimate online activity, and censorship.

Talk is being led by the Washington based Center for Democracy and Technology and San Francisco’s non-profit Business for Social Responsibility. They are trying to craft a code to hold companies answerable if they cooperate with governments to repress free speech or violate human rights.

Google’s library grows and grows

Google has recently announced another major US college library to join its controversial project to put the world’s books online. More than one million written books at University of Texas library in Austin would be converted to digital format and added to Google Books Library Project.

The university’s collection has rare books and manuscripts from early Latin American history, said Google.

The Google Book Search project was started during 2004 with a hope of scanning every literary work into digital format and making them accessible online. Google has partnerships with the New York Public Library and few other major universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Complutense of Madrid and the University of California to add more collections to its virtual book shelves.

Microsoft, Google agree to NGO code of conduct

Beijing – To promote freedom of expression and privacy rights, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and two other companies are planning to develop a code of conduct with a coalition of nongovernmental organization.

The two organizations with Yahoo Inc. and Vodafone Group announced that the new guidelines are the result of talks with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. The involved party stated that they will be developing a framework, which would hold signatories accountable for their actions in the areas of freedom of expression and privacy rights.

The participating groups in development of the guidelines include: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Business for Social Responsibility; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights Watch; along with Reporters without Borders.