Google has recently denied that it is looking for possible acquisition of Napster, There hasn't been any official proof of google's denial,

Googlemusic.com is owned by google for more than 3 years, Already they provide paid videos through their video service, Now we can see google is looking for capturing the music industry,



timesonline article says

"It has long been thought that Google would eventually offer online music. The company, which currently earns the majority of its revenues through internet advertising, is under pressure to show it can leverage its powerful brand in other markets. It already offers video services where customers pay for content.
Google sources have also told Times Online that the company is concentrating heavily on developing digital rights management systems to protect content providers’ copyright. Such work would be a necessary precursor to Google developing its own online music service. "

Read more here, business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2017867,00.html

eweek online magazine reports of the new google update datacenter big daddy , Many report big daddy results are spreading to many datacenters around the world, we see evidence for that too, to confirm that a google DC is live, check for the phrase sf giants , if the site sfgiants.com ranks No.1 then you are NOT seeing godaddy results, if the No.1 result shows giants.mlb.com then you are seeing big daddy datacenter results,



A small review on this was written by us, https://www.searchenginegenie.com/seo-blog/2006/01/review-on-new-google-update-big-daddy.html

Yahoo search blog http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000241.html reports that Andrei Broder a renowned search engine expert has joined yahoo search team,

Yahoo should be proud to have him in their team, He with Krishna Bharat, Susan T. Dumais, Steve Papa, Jan Pedersen, Prabhakar Raghavan , Sridhar Rajagopalan , Jeffrey Dean, Monika Rauch Henzinger etc had written many research papers, his huge list of research papers are here,

http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Broder:Andrei_Z=.html

Yahoo search blog reports

"Broder is co-winner of the Best Paper award at WWW6 for his work on duplicate elimination of web pages and at WWW9 for his work on mapping the web. And here’s a big list of Andrei's papers. Andre also serves as chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Mathematical Foundations of Computing and has recently been named a 2006 IEEE Fellow “for contributions to the theory and application of randomized algorithms”.
"

Google has agreed that it censors it's search results due to regulations in effect in china, China which is still under communist rule have strict policies on surfing the web,
Google's china results are served under the domain google.cn,

Because of government barriers set up to suppress information, Google's China users previously have been blocked from using the search engine.

breitbart.com/news/2006/01/24/D8FBCF686.html

Recently nevada court ruled out google's cache of web pages being a copyright infringement, a website owner filed lawsuit against google for caching his website and posting on their search results,

court ruled out his claim and judged google is not infringing copyrights,

check here - eff.org/IP/blake_v_google/google_nevada_order.pdf

GoHost website is introduced by NetStrategies

GoHost website is introduced by NetStrategies at www.gohost.com.

GoHost provides SEO toolkid which helps small business sites are more findable to the search engines. So when potential customers searches the word which related to your business, they may find your site before your competitor’s site.

http://uk.webhostdir.com/news/articles/shownews.asp?id=14364

WebStream internet solutions develops a new user interface

WebStream internet solutions has developed a new user interface for tracing organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is developed to increase traffic to client web sites.

UI runs on its own traffic network which collects the history of SEO marketing work done by the WebStreams,so the clent can easily check ranking before they begin their work. Said by the firm.


http://br.sys-con.com/read/174287.htm

Tim Banister has joined SEO inc. sa company’s Chief Operations Officer said by the Search Engine Optimization inc. A sincere professional having ten years of managerial experience, Tim Banister will review all he daily happenings of the company and guarantee the continued quality of the products and client service for which SEO Inc. is renowned.

For more details

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/1/emw336830.htm

From keyword spamming and bloated page density issues, over-the-top search engine optimization practices can ruin good META and content techniques.

Online marketers might have the best of intentions with their natural search engine optimization programs. Yet, they drop the ball with their laziness and eagerness to try the latest tricks and fads.

for more details

http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060103HowLousySEOSmothersGoodPractices.html

MLA congratulates south Armagh Gaelic poet

AN SDLP MLA for Newry and Armagh has praised south Armagh poet Raymond Murray, who is a native of Newtownhamilton, on the publication of his latest book. Speaking at an Irish language event Mr Bradley said, ‘Monsignor Murray is famous for his pioneering work on human rights and for his historical writing but not a sufficient amount people know of his poetic work. He has published three volumes of poetry in Irish and his most recent collection lives up to the standard of his previous works.

for more see at

http://www.newrydemocrat.com/news/story.asp?j=5203

CBG Safety and Surveillance Technology Declares the Grand Re-Opening of its Online Store with an extended Offering of Security and Surveillance Equipment


The new Website will allow CBG Safety & Surveillance Technology to pass along extra savings to its customers and is proud to announce an expanded product selection.

DALLAS, TX (PRWEB) January 19, 2006 â€"- CBG Safety & Surveillance Technology, a national retailer of the highest quality safety and surveillance products on the market is pleased to declare the unveiling of its newly updated corporate Website

for more see at

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/1/prweb334072.htm

Google Talk’s Open Federation

On the Google Blog today, Google Talk Product Manager Mike Jazayeri announced the Open Federation for Google Talk - which has not anything to do with Star Trek notes Jazayeri. Mark this post Open Source community friendly post as the second big statement of the day, after Google’s monstrous advertising department Google AdWords announced that they just gobbled up the somewhat automated dMarc radio advertising firm.

More on the Google Talk Open Federation from the Official Google Blog:

“Open federation” is technical jargon for when people on unusual services can talk to each other. For example, email is a federated system. You might have a .edu address and I have a Gmail address, but you and I can still send and receive email. The same for the phone: there’s nothing that prevents Cingular users from talking to Sprint users.

unluckily, this is not the case with many IM and Internet voice calling services today. You can only talk to people on the particular service you have an account on (so you need an account on every service to talk to everybody, which is pretty cumbersome). With open federation, you get to prefer your service provider and you can talk to people on any other federated service (and vice versa).

In addition to the Google Talk service, many other companies, universities, and corporations support open federation today. This means you can now talk to millions of users around the world all with a single account on the service provider of your choice.

Once a Site Visitor Arrives They Make Some Key Judgments in fewer Than the Time It Takes to Blink

So you've made great seo work and people are arriving on your site(s). Now, how long does it take for a visitor to make aesthetic judgments that, "influence the rest of their experience"? According to some new follow a line of investigation out of Canada it takes less than the time it takes to blink your eyes. A Reuter’s article: Web sites judged in a blink, says that it takes, "one-twentieth of a second -- less than half the time it takes to blink..."

"It really is just a physiological response," Gitte Lindgaard [a professor at Carelton University] told Reuters on Tuesday. "So Web designers have to make sure they're not offending users visually..."If the first feeling is negative, you'll probably drive people off."
So, does the research give’s any suggestions on how a page might look? Nope. The professor goes on to say,


"When we looked at the Web sites that we tested, there is really nothing there that tells us what leads to dislike or to like."

Much of this comes down to personal taste.

US Government Wants Search Engine Data

Danny Sullivan sums it up well in his SEW blog entry named Bush Administration Demands Search Data; Google Refused , Others Comply where he says;
The Bush administration required one million random web addresses and records of all Google searches for a one week period. The government apparently wants to find out how much pornography shows up in online searches and how often people may seek it.
Here’s a thought. If you want to measure how much porn is showing up in searches, try searching for it yourself rather than issuing privacy alarm sounding subpoenas. It would certainly be more accurate.
This sprung the need for Danny to start a thread at his forums named A Search Privacy Bill Of Rights. In that thread he asks members to answer a few questions, including; What do you think should be in such a bill? What protections do you want specifically spelled out? Should make for a nice thread.

Washington Post Halts Blog Comments

Duncan Riley at Blog Herald reports that “The WashingtonPost has for an indefinite period shut off the ability for people to post comments on its blog since of ‘objectionable postings.’”Duncan explains that the Post’s policy was to prohibit comments that were personal attacks or used vulgarity or hate speech. Sounds like they got a whiff of the time eater that blog comment management can be. Surprised they did not just install some filters and / or CAPTCHA tools to cut down on spamming and questionable language.“Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we’ve decided not to allow comments for the time being,” Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, wrote on the subject.Hmmm, after taking a glance at one of the Washington Post’s political blogs, it seems that comments are live again. A look at The Fix also shows comments are active. Seems that Duncan is only referring to the official Washington Post Blog, and not blogs within the Washington Post Media site. Those comment fields are still open for writing offensive postings by Washingtonians.

Tic Tac Websites Integrates with Online Business Opportunities Tic Tac Websites makes it possible for a website maker, newbie or otherwise to build their own website in a matter of five (5) minutes. Through the Easy Online Website Builder, website building becomes quick, easy and hassle-free. Newbie website makers can have a chance to build a efficiently designed and marketable web site as easily as professionals can. Tic Tac Websites now becomes a melting pot for drop ship centers and other online selling business resources where great opportunities are introduced for those starting websites to test the waters of online selling business. Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) January 17, 2006 -â€" Web site building can now be achieved without too much hassle in a space of five (5) minutes. This is made possible by Tic Tac Websites’ latest innovative website building system, the Easy Online Website Builder. By just logging in at www.tictacwebsites.com and subscribing to its monthly or yearly payment plan, website makers can start having the website they want without going throughout puzzling technical jargon. Recently, Tic Tac Websites integrates with wholesalemarketer.com a Drop Ship Product Center, Clickbank, an Online allocation Center, and Paypal, a credit card/checking account payment center. This combination means great opportunities for newbie and specialized website makers to test the waters of online selling business and earn extra returns. They can easily install these links on their website and form their very own e-commerce website. Tic Tac Websites and its new partners introduces lots of sources to be needed by those who are into the online business, either as an eBay seller, or other sellers on website stores and auction sites online. Tic Tac Websites website building program boasts of an easy-to-use system, which gives no difficulties for newbie website makers even if they have limited technical know how. They have easy-to-understand and learn technical support system that’s designed especially for the non-professional website maker. This is embodied by the “Getting Started” tutorial, 33 chapters of Online Documentation Help features, a knowledge base with a stronghold of 350+ articles and FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) provision.

Google Base & The v7ndotcom elursrebmem SEO Contest


Damn -- just when I thought I could ignore the latest SEO contest, it does something appealing. First, Greg Rock star Boser notes that while Yahoo already has picked up 130 matches for v7ndotcom elursrebmem (and I see 296 myself, right now), Google comes in with zilch. Since the keywords for the contest were only announced today, one conclusion is that Yahoo is much faster at Google in gathering new content. (Another conclusion is that Matt Jagger Cutts over at Google is rallying the troops to keep v7ndotcom elursrebmem content out of Google). Whatever, the case, Google isn't alone. MSN has no matches while Ask Jeeves comes in with two. But Thread watch reports Google results that not everybody can see. These appear to be flowing from Google Base into regular Google. Whether you see them seems to depend on whether Google has decided you are in the right country, frame of mind, hitting the right cluster, got the exact cookie or some other semi-voodoo factor to show them to you. Be sure to see the screenshot at Thread watch or the blowup Barry does complete with highlighting over at Search Engine Roundtable. You'll see the special "Home Page:" or "More About" or "Author" links coming along with the listings. Funky results not sufficient for you? Want to join the competition. Well, you'll find the rules of the originating contest here. The prize is $4,000 plus an iPod. Do a bit more work as explained here, and you could pick up an additional $3,000.

Domain name purchases soar following amazing news about MillionDollarHomepage.com ecommerce, any one can do it, How simple it is to get an idea off the ground? /24-7PressRelease/ - LONDON, UK, January 18, 2006 - If you've been keeping up with the news in the last week, you will be well aware of the 21 year old who's made a million dollars in 4 months. Well,our customers have, and 100's web addresses have registered in the last few days connecting to this unique idea. The idea was quite simple, just selling pixels as advertising space, costing a dollar per dot. The minimum purchase was $100 for a 10x10 pixel square to hold the buyer's logo or design. Clicking on that space takes readers to the buyer's website. And here is the amazing bit, all it took was a Domain Name and a Basic WebHosting Account which at White Star Web Hosting http://www.web-hosting.org.uk.tp starts at just $12 per month, If you want your own Forum, Blogsite or support site, perhaps to complement your on hand website(s) this is the easiest way to do it! 33 pre loaded web site scripts makes life really easy if you are a newbie webmaster or if your looking for full functionality stylish features, multi language support, 24/7 customer support, UK and US telephone numbers to speak to them directly. News stories about a young novice student making million, is the essence of Internet ecommerce, any one can do it, showing how simple it is to get an idea off the ground. With rapidly growing numbers of people joining the Internet every day, now is the time to set up your idea. Next get your self over to http://www.seotop10rankings.com and you can get all the webmaster tools and expert search engine optimization (seo - the science of getting to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPS). Get the latest information on Google's Backdoor at no cost to you....not a dime.

In-House SEO :: To Promote and Protect An appealing thread for in-house SEOs appeared at the IHelpYou Forums this morning. "In-house SEO" is a term referring to an SEO who is employed by a non-search connected company as a staff member in charge of website promotions. In the JohnC, an IHY moderator notes his job has shifted subtly from website promoter to website protector. "An SEOs primary responsibility is typically seen as “promoting" a web site. However, more and more I find for myself in the role of “Protector”. Someone will have an idea for a site feature or technology change and it is up to me to make sure this change will not hurt the web site in anyway, search wise. unavoidably, someone will read about a “cool” new technique to get better search placement. I find I must be on constant guard against these “Monday Morning Optimizers”. Usually, they don’t see the whole picture or understand that the information they found is years out of date." (JohnC) With organic search again becoming a more vital component of website promotion, SEOs of all stripes are seeing more "Monday Morning Optimizers". They are also dealing with the injure those well-meaning but ill-informed extra efforts can bring. Whatever his motives for addressing the topic this morning, JohnC has performed a public service for frustrated SEOs. "I think every person involved with a website has the potential to get it banned from the search engines. As the SEO it’s my job to see that they don’t." (JohnC) "Recently i helped a client with their in-house design and seo guidelines. The list of warning/dont's has become larger than the list of "do's". More than ever, it has become important to know what to avoid." (Danny) Anyone with similar experiences or tips on dealing with armchair optimizers should read and add to the thread.

There are still a lot of questions to be sure, but there are some good beginnings of answers as well. Since this update was rolled out over months and in three distinct phases, it has been much more difficult to determine what factors have been given more or less weight.

What are some theories? Here are some of the top ones and, this is not a full list; there are most likely numerous other factors that affect Google rankings after Jagger that no one has recognized at all yet. Read the following.

Factors That Could Possibly HELP More in Jagger's Aftermath

Aged Domains - Sites with domains that are older rank better now - the older the domain, the better its rankings with all other things being equal.
Very Relevant Links - Inbound links and outbound links relevancy is more important after Jagger. This means that if you point to related sites or you get links from other sites that are related to your website, you may rank better after Jagger with all other things being equal.
Links From Trusted Sites Help - Trust Rank is more important than ever after Jagger. Trust Rank is a concept that says if you get a link pointing to your site that is highly trusted by Google then you will rank better with all other things being equal.
Variety of Links - Links from .edu and .org websites are good for increasing your rankings and are more important than ever.
Aged Links - The older the link that points to your site, the more weight it's given now.
Embedded Links - Links that are embedded in sentences and paragraphs instead of stand-alone links are weighted more heavily now.
Article Links - Articles are what directories had been a year or two ago for link building. Links from the author by-line or within the article that point back to your site will positively affect your rankings.
Fresh & Unique Content - Now, more than ever, regularly updated and added ordinal content will help your rankings.
High Traffic & Stickiness - User popularity statistics now, or will soon, affect rankings. In other words, user actions on your website, like how long they stay (stickiness), how many pages they visit, and even how many people visit your site in a given period, can all affect how Google ranks your site.

Factors That Could Possibly Not Help Anymore, or May Even HURT More In Jagger's Aftermath

Duplicate Content - Any kind of duplicate content can hurt your rankings. Some say this only refers to other sites having the same content as you while others say even duplicate content within your own site can be bad. I find the latter hard to believe since all sites have repeating slogans, phrases, checkout instructions, or any number of other duplicate sentences within the same site.
Hidden Text - Hidden text within your html, in div tags, CSS, or comments, can negatively affect your rankings.
Decreased Rate of Link Building - The speed and volume of inbound link creation to your site from other websites, if changed, can negatively affect your rankings more so now.
Linking to Bad Neighborhoods - Reciprocal link trades hurt your rankings when you link to sites that are considered 'bad neighborhoods' by Google, such as link farms or sites that are banned by Google.
Link Schemes - Participating in link schemes such as Co-ops or Link Vault can hurt your ranking more than help them.

A clean, simple, fast-loading site with natural links pointing to it from a variety of other related websites, some .org's and .edu's, others from trusted authority sites, and many from small related websites, that adds fresh and unique content daily, will rank well in Google over time and won't be affected by any update, including Jagger.

There's a great article by Jason Miller, staff writer for WebProNews on the upcoming increase in Microsoft's push for the search market.Microsoft's counter assault to Ad Sense will be launching in full force in June, up from the 20% of paid listings it currently provides in the MSN search results. Microsoft unveiled its ad Lab yesterday.While it's not up yet the ad Center will be available shortly at http://advertising.msn.com/searchadv/. This story will shed some light on this important move by Microsoft at this relatively early point in what's sure to be a major battle for the eyeballs of the world by these two giants.

From the earliest time of the industry, search marketers have rallied behind the idea that companies needed to hire them in order to increase a web site's rankings in the search engines. The idea was that higher rankings equaled more traffic and more traffic equaled more sales. Online businesses large and small, disappointed to discover that traffic wasn't exactly lining up at the doors of their newly opened web sites, slowly began to see value in the "voodoo" that search marketers promised to work on their sites. As such, an industry was born.
The problem was that as more businesses became skilled about the need for search engine marketing, the idea that search engine marketing was all about rankings sustained to spread. This set the entire industry up for a level of expectation that simply cannot be sustained. While top five or even top ten rankings could be achieved by skilled SEMs for almost any keyword phrase, the day is coming when the industry will grow to levels that make phrases so competitive that even the most skilled search marketers will have difficulty attaining top rankings.

Imagine, for a moment, that other marketing industries had set themselves up with similar expectations. That email marketers were measured unsuccessful if you didn't make the top ten list in terms of visitors to your site, that public relations professionals were a failure if you weren't one of the top ten stories of the year, that television commercials were a failure unless they resulted in more store visits than all but ten other companies in their industry. Starting to sound a little silly?

Of course it does! Marketing is about finding new and innovative ways to present a product so that it drives purchases. Commercial marketers work to capture an audience’s attention in a way that keeps a company top of mind when the need arises for their product. Direct mail advertisers seek to capture a potential customer's interest with a compelling enough offer to create a sale or at least an inquiry. This is where the search marketing industry finds itself facing a challenge. They need to educate businesses to help them toss out the old "top ten rankings" philosophy in exchange for the more realistic and sustainable "positive return on investment" philosophy. Otherwise, the entire industry runs the risk of imploding sometime in the next several years. The industry did shoot itself in the collective foot by setting up expectations based on rankings, but a positive ROI can act as a powerful remedy to help get things moving again.

Clix Marketing, an Internet marketing agency, Louisville, KY, launched a site this week devoted to education and discussion of MSN's test paid search program, MSN ad Center.
The MSN Genius site, www.msn-genius.com, includes news about ad Center, a discussion board for advertisers testing the service, and software and template downloads.
"MSN Genius aims to shorten the learning curve for new users of ad Center, while supplying advanced users with professional marketing advice and techniques," according to a statement from Clix Marketing. In related news, MSN Ad Center users in Europe now have access to more demographic profiling tools.

Just as a head's up, we've been seeing some significant fluctuations in the current rankings on Google and there appears to be some fluctuation of Page Rank going on.This is likely the beginning of the update that Matt Cutts (software engineer for Google) was referring to in his blog about an update early in January.As the first update after Jagger we can be certain that it will be big and include some very interesting changes to the way rankings and perhaps even Page Rank are calculated.

SEARCH GIANT GOOGLE HAS APPARENTLY entered into a deal with Dell Computers to provide a Dell-Google co-branded personalized home page, which will be the default home page set for new Dell PCs and laptops.

the recent dell computer we bought for our SEO company holds the google homepage, it has other modules attached to it,

Google has its own DRM ( digital rights management ) for their videos,

but a popular news site says,

Google is drawing criticism for its decision to use its own digital-rights management (DRM) system to control the distribution of copyright-protected videos in its new Google Video Store.
Google announced the Google Video Store last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Google's own proprietary DRM technology represents a challenge to existing DRM systems from Microsoft and Apple, also used to control video distribution over the Internet.
By creating yet another DRM system, Google is restricting rather than enabling the distribution of content over the Internet, critics say.

www.cio-today.com/news/Google-Draws-Criticism-for-DRM-Scheme/story.xhtml?story_id=022000QKPE5O

AOL Acquires Internet video search pioneer Truveo, Inc.

"
Online consumers seeking the best video search engine will now find it on the leading free portal on the web - AOL.com ( http://aol.com/video ). Internet video search pioneer Truveo, Inc. has been acquired by America Online, Inc., solidifying AOL's leadership position as the premier destination for a full suite of video and search services.
AOL's acquisition agreement with Truveo was signed and closed on December 21, 2005. Financial terms were not disclosed. Truveo was previously privately held, and financed by strategic venture and angel investors.
Truveo, based in Burlingame, California, was co-founded by CEO Dr. Tim Tuttle and CTO Dr. Adam Beguelin in January 2004. Truveo subsequently launched its premier video search engine technology in September 2005. "

This looks like a good deal for AOL and its customers, Video search is an other great development and due to the increase in high spead broadband connections more and more videos come online, AOL is sure to benefit on this,

http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06011012.htm

Says AOL betrays google,

"Remember that Google basically had to shell out $1 billion in order to keep its share of AOL's search biz. As part of the deal, it had to compromise its increasingly farcical "don't be evil" motto by pledging to help AOL tweak its web pages so that they'll appear more prominently in Google's unpaid search results. ("We won't cheat, but we'll show you how!")
After strongarming the billion bucks out of Google, what was Time Warner and AOL's response to Google's much-hyped video rollout this week?
AOL said, "Thanks for the money, and by the way, we're upgrading our own video search." Webheads can find it at aol.com/video. AOL souped up its own video search platform by purchasing the small video search company Truveo. "

Google is offering scholarship in the name of the great anita borg,

Who is anita borg??

Dr. Anita Borg (1949 - 2003) devoted her adult life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Her combination of technical expertise and fearless vision continues to inspire and motivate countless women to become active participants and leaders in creating technology.

Eligibility Requirements

Candidates must be entering their senior year of undergraduate study or be enrolled in a graduate program in 2006 - 2007 at a university in the United States.
be Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field majors.
be enrolled in full-time study in 2006 - 2007.
maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale or equivalent in their current program.

How to Apply

Complete the online application form and submit the requested documentation via mail. All applications must be postmarked by Friday, January 20, 2006. Finalists will be notified in March 2006 and recipients will be announced in April 2006. As the final step in the scholarship selection process, all finalists will have phone interviews with representatives from the Selection Committee. Interviews for internships or full time opportunities are separate from scholarship phone interviews.

More information here,

https://www.google.com/anitaborg/

Google blog posting here,

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/2006-anita-borg-scholarships.html

their blog entry

"The wonderfully-named Dr. Anita Borg (1949 - 2003) was a rebel with a cause: ensuring that technology itself has positive outcomes, and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Today the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology carries on her vision. And because Google shares that passion, we are pleased to sponsor the 2006 Anita Borg Scholarship program. We are inspired by the past scholarship recipients -- and in hopes of finding more, the program is expanded this year to accept applications from students entering their senior year of undergraduate study as well as those enrolled in a graduate program."

TOKYO â€" Web search service was suspended for five and a half hours Sunday on the Yahoo! Japan portal due to a computer server glitch, Yahoo Japan Corp said.
The company said it has already taken measures to prevent a recurrence and that the problem was not caused by a cyber attack. The search function was out of service from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

A user comments saying

From what i can find, yahoo jp is tended by Akamai Technologies Japan KK. begining in 2001this however is a joint venture between softbank and Akamai Technologies Inc. (headquarters - cambridge, MA)info on softbank: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/sep/1180417.htmand"A notable loser was Softbank Corp, Japan's largest provider of broadband Web access and Wednesday's most active issue by value, losing 5.49 percent to 3,960 yen.Softbank took a beating on news of the arrest of four men in two separate cases on suspicion of stealing confidential data of customers to Yahoo BB, Softbank's high-speed Internet service joint venture with affiliate Yahoo Japan Corp, and trying to extort money from the company..."http://www.brlfinance.net/financial-news.html

Summary:
Yahoo is expanding its reach in the fast-growing Internet calling market, offering a service that will allow people to make and receive low-cost computer calls to and from regular phones.The long-expected move could make the Sunnyvale company one of the biggest players in the Internet phone-calling market, along with eBay-owned Skype Technologies, Vonage and others.With the new service, the estimated 82 million people worldwide who use Yahoo instant messenger will be able to call any traditional fixed or wireless phone number in 180 countries.The service comes with a free voicemail box.Although the calls will not be free, they will be extraordinarily inexpensive -- a penny a minute to anywhere in the United States and less than 2 cents a minute to more than 30 countries, including China, Japan and Sweden.``These prices, in most cases, offer dramatic reductions over other competitors out there,'' said Jeff Bonforte, senior director of voice product management for Yahoo.The company briefed media outlets on the news earlier this week under agreements that they would not publish it until the service launched.The number of companies offering Internet calling -- also known as Voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP -- has soared in recent years as high-speed Internet use becomes more common.Most companies charge a monthly rate and their services are designed to be used as regular phones, except that the phone plugs into an Internet connection instead of a traditional phone network.AT&T, Vonage, Comcast, AOL and Packet8 are among the myriad companies with VoIP calling plans.Yahoo will charge $30 a year to purchase a phone number for incoming calls; Skype charges $35.