Microsoft Paying You To Use Their Search Engine

In an attempt to gain ground on Google's dominance in the money rich online search engine advertising, Microsoft is offering cash discount for people that buy products that they find through their Live Search website. The program was announced by Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, at their annual advertising conference. It will be called Cashback (clever, right?), and will allow users to claim their money once their account has reached a minimum of five dollars.

It amazes me that the business of search engine advertising is becoming such a bug business that companies are willing to pay its customers to use their service. This shows you what a cash cow a search engine service must be for many companies, Google being the most obvious since they have been able to revolutionize the Internet through their search engine.

Facebook Allowed To Use Your Photos For Advertising

If you're on Facebook, you've no doubtingly have seen the new flood of advertisements that have begun to show up. The most obvious one is this one that appears on the sidebar whenever you are logged in. The advertisements are comprised of a title, a picture, and some descriptive text. But where do the pictures come from? You'll be surprised.

Advertising on websites, specially social networks, has become common place today and most people don't take much notice to them. They way they work is the website gains information about each individual and displays a corresponding advertisement that the user is most likley to click on. That's a quick crash course on target marketing online advertising but Facebook goes a bit further. The pictures that are used in many of the advertisements are ones that users post on their profile. When you sign up for Facebook you agree for them to use the content in your profile for advertising purposes. Basically, Facebooks can take any photo that you are tagged in and use it in any advertisement throughout the site without you having any say in what you photo is being used for. So now that you know what is going on, how can you fix it?

In the privacy settings of Facebook you are allowed to opt out of allowing your pictures to be used in social advertising. In the Social Ads section of the Privacy settings, you must select "no one" to turn off the use of your pictures in social advertisements.

Should Microsoft Be Worried?

Apple has become the 3rd largest computer manufacturer, with a 6.6% market share, and the top two manufacturers, Dell and HP, are beginning to offer Linux alternatives to Windows. Their operating system, Windows, is being undermined by the rise of Apple's OSX and the sophistication of Linux as a commercial operating system. With the bad reception of Vista, people are losing faith in Windows or refusing to upgrade from XP. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc...) is being attacked by the popularity of web applications. Google Docs and Zoho, are both able to offer many of the feature Microsoft Office has, for free and without the need to install software. The Windows Mobile platform is being attacked by RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone. And the Microsoft Xbox took a hit this year when HD-DVD, the format Microsoft supported, lost the next generation format battle to Sony's Blue-Ray. So should Microsoft Worry?

It seems that Microsoft is getting competition on all front, something the company has grown accustomed to. For as long as I can remember, Microsoft has been the company to beat in the technology industry. They are the largest and most influential to almost all aspect of the industry (many have suggested that they should split into several smaller companies because of their size and diversity). They are no stranger to competition and are very good at riding through any problems. They have more capital than almost any other tech company and are able to use that to weather any storm that comes their way. They have also been able to adopt the more web 2.o strategy of buying smaller companies and not changing much, just integrating it into current activities. Most of what Google and Apple does makes the news but not Microsoft. For such a large company they are doing a good job of staying relatively under the radar, as to what they are working on behind their corporate doors.

Also, much of what Microsoft does is not seen by the average consumers simply because it's not relevant to them. Microsoft is the main player in the corporate world. A lot of Microsoft's competition come from the consumer market, but Microsoft still has a relative stronghold on the flow of technology in the corporate world.

The web app craze is very popular but storing data on your own hard drive is something that will always be needed. You need to have access to your data and that is what desktop applications allow for. If you trust everything to online storage you lose the safety is something every happens and you need to quickly access the data. Microsoft controls the desktop application game. Most of their software is used by both consumers and corporations. There will always be a need for Microsoft software, it would take a large unified change by everyone to make Microsoft software no longer needed. It is such an entrenched part of our technology life that we incorporate their software to everything we do. Their software is able to adapt to the latest trends, i.e the iPhone comes out and Microsoft develops Microsoft Exchange support for the iPhone. No matter what the company, if it has to do with technology they conform to the Microsoft standard.

This was written as something to think about and make us consider how big Microsoft really is and how much we rely on their software, maybe more than we think we do. Try thinking about how many Microsoft products you use or how much you conform to the Microsoft format.

Banking For The Web 2.0 Generation

Since being in college I've begun to do away with physical mail. I get my bills and monthly statements sent to me via e-mail, it makes my life a lot easier by doing more things online. I signed up to receive all my financial information via e-mail through each of the individual companies (Bank of America, Capitol One, etc...) This system worked alright, but I received an individual e-mail from each company and had to deal with each account on a different website. This didn't make it very easy to keep track of my overall spending and saving. In comes Mint.com.

Mint is bringing web 2.0 style to the corporate finance world, and it banking on the younger generations having an interest in their personal finance (no pun intended). Mint is all about saving you money. It gives suggestions on ways to save money and categorizes your spending to show areas where you can spend less. And what is web 2.0 without the social aspect. Mint allows users, who choose to, to share and compare their spending habits with others. See how others save money and help others with your methods. Its a new and interesting approach to money management that seems to really work.

I began using Mint to track my finances for the past three months, I've gradually began adding more to my account the more I enjoyed using it. I now have all my accounts being tracked by Mint. Mint provides me with a monthly e-mail showing my activity in all of my accounts, as well as itemized lists as to what I'm spending my money on. If I click through to my account on their website I'm able to see a lot more information that is very clearly presented in graphs and charts.

A true one stop source for all your financials, and its continuing to grow. Mint has recently announced that it will be expanding into tracking your stocks and mutual fund portfolios. Mint has partnered with The Motley Fool, a popular investment advice website. This partnership makes the advice that Mint gives more reliable and is able to expand to all aspects of finance. If you have a lot of accounts or your money seems to be all over the place or you just can't seem to stick to a budget, Mint is the service for you. It making finance easy for the web generation.

Last Chance For The Ultimate Steal

Microsoft has extended their Ultimate Steal promotion. The promotion allows you to get Microsoft Office Ultimate for 91% off the retail, you get everything for about $60, not bad for a full office suite from Microsoft who usually charges in the hundreds of dollars for its software. The deal has been extended to May 16th and is restricted to college students, so hurry and cash in on this deal while you can.

Microsoft Appeals EU's 1.4 Billion Dollar Fine

Microsoft is asking European courts to eliminate or reduce the record fine of $1.4 billion (899 euros) given out in February. Microsoft has dealt with its fair share of antitrust lawsuits, and is not surprisingly appealing the European Union's decision. Microsoft was unfairly treated in this case and turned into the EU's personal ATM. Microsoft is the first company in 50 years to be sued for non-compliance with EU antitrust laws.

via Bloomberg

Weekend Fun: Omnisio

Omnisio is a new website that allows you to edit and change online video. You can take videos from Youtube and change them to make them your own. You can splice videos together, add your own content or comments into the video, or any other normal video editing functions. You get a basic timeline set up to edit your videos. A sample of the webapp's editor below.

Taking a Week Off

It's finals week here at college, so like all college students I have to get good grades on the finals. I'll be pretty busy and not able to post on the regular like I have been. I'll post If I get any free time, but don't expect anything special. My normal post routine will begin again on Monday, May 12th.

I have also been working on a new design for the blog that should be ready around the same time. If there is anything you would like to see on this blog let me know in the comments and they'll be worked into the new design.