Google, Verizon Wireless: A Potent Smartphone Team

Move over Apple and Research In Motion. Rivalry in the smartphone market has just heated up.

For a while it seemed the bloodiest battle in smartphones would be fought between Apple (AAPL), maker of the iPhone, and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIMM). But an emerging alliance between Google (GOOG) and Verizon Wireless has the potential to create a potent alternative to the BlackBerry and iPhone in the U.S. smartphone market.

On Oct. 6, Verizon Wireless and Google said they will collaborate on mobile devices, services, and software for the Android mobile operating system that's being developed by a Google-led consortium. The pairing gives Android its largest-yet wireless industry backer and is likely to accelerate the development of Android-based devices and of applications tailored to the Android operating system.

Thirty Android-Based Devices by Yearend?

Analysts expect Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD) and the largest U.S. wireless service provider, to unveil at least three Android-based phones from such makers as Motorola (MOT), Samsung, and HTC later this month.

Backing from Verizon Wireless, which boasts 87.7 million users, could encourage other handset makers to build for Android, too. All told, device manufacturers may unveil 30 Android-based devices by yearend, says Stifel Nicolaus analyst George Askew. Last summer, Google's top Android manager, Andy Rubin, said he expected up to 20 devices to debut in 2009.

Depending on how aggressively Verizon Wireless begins marketing Android handsets, BlackBerrys and other smartphones could be forced to play second fiddle in Verizon Wireless stores, says Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu.

An increasingly important selling point for smartphones is the availability of applications, such as games and productivity tools, often developed by third-party programmers. Android Market, which sells games and productivity apps for phones such as the T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G, currently offers about 10,000 apps. The Apple App Store has more than 85,000.

No iPhone for Verizon Wireless?

Part of the reason for the success of Apple's outlet is the marketing support from big carriers such as AT&T (T), the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier. Once Verizon Wireless starts preloading Android Market on handsets and offering its own games and other applications through the store, the Market's content and usage should increase. "Within 12 to 18 months, we'll see a lot more interesting applications coming out of the developer community," says Scott Ellison, a vice-president at consultant IDC.

The Verizon Wireless network is reputed to be more reliable than AT&T's in key markets. Add to that the prospect of more features, and Android phones become more viable alternatives to the iPhone. Partnering with Google also gives Verizon Wireless less incentive to make the concessions it would need to offer in order to become a partner to Apple in selling the iPhone. "They are showing Apple: 'If we don't get the iPhone, we have all this other stuff; we are not desperate,'" says Tero Kuittinen, senior analyst at institutional equity trading and research firm MKM Partners.

Another smartphone maker, Microsoft (MSFT), has been losing market share to RIM and Apple, and the Verizon Wireless-Google alliance could put it further in the shadows. The Android alliance was announced on the very day Microsoft was unveiling a new version of its cell-phone software under a new name, Windows Phone. The brand, which replaces Windows Mobile, will be supported by a major marketing campaign. Still, Microsoft's announcement got far less play in the media than Google's. "I am sure Google meant to be a spoiler," says Kuittinen.

If it's any consolation, Microsoft may not be the only one to lose out.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com

Google's Wave to Replace E-Mail and Facebook?

That's how big Google's vision is for its Wave social-networking/search service, which will have apps created by independent developers who sell them at a Google app store.

Google has big plans for Google Wave, its new online communication service—and they won't all come from Google.

The Web search giant is hoping that software developers far and wide will create tools that work in conjunction with Wave, making an already multifaceted service even more useful. Google (GOOG) is even likely to let programmers sell their applications through an online bazaar akin to Apple's App Store, the online marketplace for games and other applications designed for the iPhone. "We'll almost certainly build a store," Lars Rasmussen, the Google software engineering manager who directs the 60-person team in Sydney, Australia, that created Wave, told BusinessWeek.com. "So many developers have asked us to build a marketplace—and we might do a revenue-sharing arrangement."

Combining instant messaging, e-mail, and real-time collaboration, Wave is an early form of so-called real-time communication designed to make it easier for people to work together or interact socially over the Internet. Google started letting developers tinker with Wave at midyear and then introduced the tool on a trial basis to about 100,000 invited users starting on Sept. 30. Invitations were such a hot commodity that they were being sold on eBay (EBAY). For Google the hope is that Wave, once it's more widely available, will replace competing communications services such as e-mail, instant messaging, and possibly even social networks such as Facebook.

If Wave takes off, applications created by outside developers could make it more useful, and an app store would give those programmers and their financial backers a share in Wave's success. Already, independent software developers have built and tested Wave applications that handle such tasks as teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and multiplayer gaming.

Wave wouldn't be Google's first stab at an app store. Google runs Android Market, which sells third-party software for phones such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and shares 70% of those sales with developers, keeping the rest. Android Market offers about 10,000 apps, compared with the more successful Apple (AAPL) App Store, which sells software for the iPhone and iPod touch devices and boasts more than 85,000 apps.

Apps for laptops, TV, and smartphones

But while the Apple App Store sells software only for Apple gadgets, Google's Wave store would be likely to sell apps that work on all kinds of devices, from laptops to Web-enabled TVs to smartphones. Any device with a modern browser should be able to use Google Wave and download related add-ons. The Web search giant is considering selling its own applications through the Wave app store as well, Rasmussen says.

The market opportunity for such wide-ranging applications could be large if Google Wave succeeds in replacing existing modes of communication in the same way e-mail has supplanted letters. "It'll probably transform IM and e-mail systems," says Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. "Lots of imaginative developers will build a whole host of new applications. This is disruptive." Brian Pokorny, a venture capitalist at Angel, says real-time communication "is a multibillion-dollar opportunity in the next two to five years." The VC firm is considering investing in developers who are creating add-ons for Wave.

Since May, when Wave was introduced, developers have created hundreds of add-ons for the service, Rasmussen says. A handful, including some from software vendors SAP (SAP) and salesforce.com (CRM), have been tested but are not yet available to customers.

Automatic Voice-to-Text

Only six apps are available to customers who are testing Wave. One, from Ribbit, lets users place Web calls to other users and create multi-user Web conference calls. It can also automatically transcribe voice into text. Ultimately it could sell for $2.95 to $19.95, depending on the features, says Ribbit CEO Ted Griggs. "Our hopes are pretty high," he says. "If Google Wave becomes a tool for collaboration, then being early to the game has a lot of value." In August, Ribbit and its owner, BT Group (BT), hired Kevin Marks, who led some of Google's developer efforts, to be its vice-president of Web services.

Done right, Google Wave has the potential to grab traffic and user time away from Facebook; AOL's AIM; e-mail services from Google, Microsoft (MSFT), and Yahoo! (YHOO); and even Skype and Cisco System's (CSCO) WebEx. An add-on from startup 6rounds turns Wave collaboration into a video conference, similar to Skype's. Users can communicate via Web video while editing documents or playing games on Wave. The company hopes to make money by selling virtual goods through its free app.

Another developer, LabPixies, could help Wave compete with online-gaming portals. Its free sudoku puzzle game allows for real-time competitive play. The company makes money through contextual ads, into which Google could potentially share. Google could also insert its ads into other free apps.

Marketing agencies, meanwhile, are already starting to look at how they could use Wave to grow their client companies' brands by sponsoring applications or allowing fans to share photos and chat. Just as brands are now paying attention to Facebook, Wave "is something everyone's got on their radar," says Dan Shust, director of emerging media at agency Resource Interactive, which works with such companies as Victoria's Secret, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Procter & Gamble (PG). "The same thing might come true for Google Wave."

Rival services expected quickly

A chief goal for Wave and its apps is to drive use of search, which can be done directly from the Wave service, and to boost sales of Google Apps, the suite of productivity tools that competes with Microsoft Office.

Search and e-mail rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo are expected to unleash their own Wave-like products in response. "Microsoft and Yahoo will probably bring out something similar very quickly," Lindsay says. (Microsoft and Yahoo are mum on their product plans.) In a statement, Microsoft said: "While it is unclear how Google Wave will address critical needs and help consumers and businesses manage information overload, Microsoft already has solutions in place: for businesses, Office 2010 will span the PC, phone, and browser, enabling people to work when and how they want. For consumers, today over 500 million active users on Windows Live have the ability to communicate and share via popular services like Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail."

Rasmussen says his team has already been approached by several companies looking to build their own Wave-like services and connect them to Google Wave so that users of different services can communicate with one another. "We have a vision of a future where there's a Google Wave, a Yahoo Wave, a Microsoft Wave, and they all inter-operate," says Rasmussen, who wouldn't say if Google has had discussions with Yahoo or Microsoft.

Early responses to Wave have been mixed, with some users questioning whether it enhances productivity and others saying it's overly complex. "The big question remains whether it enters the mainstream," says Laura Martin, an analyst at Soleil Securities Group.

Source: www.businessweek.com

September 2009 Poll Result

In our September Poll, the question that was ask was: "Do you believe that HYIP is a sustainable Program?"

While not so many who visited our site knows HYIP nor tried it. We somehow managed to get a minuscule information about HYIP and how people thinks about it.

Out of the 7 who participated,

1 person answered Yes (Agrees that HYIP is a sustainable program)
5 people answered No (Believes that HYIP is unsustainable) and finally
1 person voted for I don't know (Doesn't know what HYIP is.)

So the majority had spoken.. most people believe that HYIP is not a sustainable program.

How Google Plans to Stay Ahead in Search

CEO Eric Schmidt discusses how Google is handling challenges from Microsoft and upstarts Twitter and Facebook — and why search remains its priority.

For all the many projects Google (GOOG) has cooking, from the video site YouTube to a new computer operating system, Internet search remains far and away its most important product. Search advertising, along with related ads that it runs on thousands of partner Web sites, still accounted for nearly all of its $22 billion in revenues last year.

That gold mine utterly depends on how well Google's search engine can maintain its lead. In a close look at the company's search quality group, BusinessWeek found that search remains Google's overriding focus. Several hundred engineers in the group continue to tweak the algorithms that instantly match queries with relevant results, making as many as 500 changes a year to these mysterious mathematical formulas.

But today, Google arguably faces more potent competition than ever, from Microsoft's (MSFT) relaunched search engine, Bing, to upstarts such as Twitter and Facebook that could change the balance of power in the Internet economy. In an interview with Silicon Valley bureau chief Robert Hof, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt explained how Google plans to stay ahead in search, and he defended Google against concerns by some investors that its many non search projects could be distracting.

What is Google's biggest strength in search?

Scale is the key. We just have so much scale in terms of the data we can bring to bear.

Are disruptive innovations in search a thing of the past?

The days when you can come in with some new idea and change everything are gone. It's a much more sophisticated set of problems than can be done with a small team coming up with a new development.

There will be disruptive developments, but they will be inserted into the flow. We keep trying to come up with new ideas. One of the ways is you bring in a new viewpoint — some grad student who really has a different view — and we help them get that view implemented.

Is there a danger that Google is focusing too much on sustaining innovations vs. disruptive ones because it has a commanding lead and its system works well as it does? Is it facing the Innovator's Dilemma where it will have trouble disrupting itself?

I think applying the Innovator's Dilemma is too simplistic. You can't throw out the existing system. There's not a need to, because it works well.

That said, in our culture, there's a bias for coming up with new ideas. We know there are significant improvements ahead, so [we tell people to] go look for them.

How much of a challenge for Google are the new real-time and social activities such as on Twitter and Facebook, where the posts are either private or so recent it's tough for Google's algorithms to rank them?

If we can't get the data, it's very, very difficult for us to rank it. Facebook has chosen to keep much of its data behind a wall, that's what it has decided to do. We favor openness, because we think that works best for the users.

Twitter is a good example of something that is very hard to rank. With real-time, we should over time find a proper way to rank them. We implemented Universal Search a while back, even though people thought it would be difficult to include videos and images in the core results. We found a way to blend different kinds of results, and it has worked very, very well. I suspect we'll be able to do the same thing with real-time.

Twitter and Facebook aren't the last things we'll see.

Source: businessweek.com

Giga-Mails.com is a Giga Scam

Url: www.giga-mails.com

Giga-Mails is a PTR/PTC scam site owned by a 24 year old punk running under the name or alias of Brandon Anderson. To top it all, this scammer loves to write poetry and brags about his dirty work. Here is a snapshot of his Myspace account: (Courtesy of PTC-Investgations)

Click on image to enlarge

The site has a delusional offer that cannot be matched by other PTC/PTR sites. This alone is enough to prove that site is a big scam. But, to cover all of its scam tactics, we have found plenty of information.

This site was reported to have ties with a scam internet server provider (GetPaidSolutions). According to our reliable source, this server was known to had host so many scam sites, where most to all have the "get rich by reading emails" theme.

This site is also known of its fake testimonials, as shown on its testimonial page. This testimonies don't show any payment proof, needless to say, there are only a few of them. It is also kinda awkward for these members to show their pictures as if they are promoting a product. These testimonies can also be easily dismissed, most especially when there had been complaints about non payments against this site.

Giga-Mails had also been known to have more than one payment processor. If you're a legit online business owner, just imagine how hard it is to fill every payment processor with enough cash to sustain all members. However, this one shows more. We believe that the owner is trying to use every resource to get money.

Finally, the owner of the site had also been said to have provided a fake address. This is the address they provided on their Google Checkout:

824 lakeshore Dr, Ashland, WI 54806

Click on image to enlarge

Google Maps showed that the owner is living either on the sidewalk or on the abandoned lot. Only a beggar or a weirdo would live on that address.

It was also said that their phone number 715-682-5611, is a pre-recording. It gives a "Time of Day Announcement" recording, it is not their actual phone number.

With so many anomalies found on this site.. it's best to stay away.

AmirBux is gone?

Amirbux (amirbux.com) is a PTC site that was reported to had been hacked many times already. This may be due to a vulnerability in their script that allows hackers to hijack the site. However, despite the trouble they've gone through, they manage to survive and kept on paying their members. Lately however, the site had been reported to have disappeared again.. leaving behind a 404 page. This page is usually displayed when a site has either been suspended, deleted, or moved. We don't know what happened to this site as there were no announcements regarding the recent problem, but members can only hope that the site comes back as it always did.

October Message

Aah.. My Biz Online is almost three months old now, and just look at how far we've come. When I started this blog, I only have 3-5 visitors in a day, no backlinks nor linkbacks, no partner sites, around 4m in alexa rank, and the site is seldom patronized. But now, this blog is within 15-58 visitors daily, we had a couple of blog linkbacks and backlinks, we had partnered with PTC-Investgations, we had made new friends, we got 60+ Twitter followers, we manage to rise to 1.2m in Alexa, we got crawled by search engine spiders and some RSS feed fetching bots, we got email subscribers, and we now have 10-20 feedburner readers. However, we had to admit that this couldn't have been possible if not to our dear readers, blog partners, and friends. All these we owe it to you guys, and for these, we sincerely thank you..

Our Stats



When we were starting, we were ashamed to show our stats, but now, we are proud of it.. Above is our hit count for the month of September - October.



Above is our feedburner status. The blue line indicates "reach" while green indicates "subscribers". Subscribers may be human or bots. Most of what we have our bots. This is still good, it shows that the search engines and web crawlers are now beginning to index our site.



The image above is our Alexa Rank. We are aiming to be in the Top 100,000. But, in order to do that, we still have to beat 1,100,000+ competing websites.