AOL and Facebook “In a Relationship”
Maybe AOL decided their Q4 news wasn’t enough to keep them in the headlines this week—but they’re back again. Of course, it’s hard to stay out of the headlines when you’re making a deal with the most popular social network in the world.
That’s right, Facebook and AOL are hooking up—and in a fairly literal way. AOL’s popular chat client, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), is integrating with Facebook’s chat feature. According to Forbes:
Starting today, AIM users will be able to chat with their Facebook friends through their AIM accounts. They’ll also be able to import so-called news feeds and “wall” posts to AIM and export status updates, videos, links, and photos to Facebook.
Interestingly, this coincides nicely with the rollout of Google Buzz, Google’s automatic social network (or “Google Wave Light“). Why is that so interesting? Well, Google Buzz is based around Gmail, including Gmail’s integrated chat—which has allowed people to use their AOL logins for years.
Of course, this news ploy also bodes well for Facebook—can’t let some other social property hog the spotlight for more than a day, right?
We first heard rumors of Facebook Chat nearly two years ago, and they quickly became reality. At the time, the move allowed Facebook users to not only communicate quickly, but meant they could use one less IM service with more centralized communications. While I like the idea of these services integrating—sometimes convergence is a good thing, after all—I can’t really see what AIM is getting out of it. I suppose they’re one step further from obsolescence, but does this just inevitably seal that fate?
What do you think? Is AIM saving itself or dooming itself with this move?
Google Talking Out of Both Sides of Its Mouth on China?
When Google announced that it would no longer play nicely with China, some suggested that this was a just a ploy to pull out of a country that it was struggling to dominate.
Of course, Google’s official stance was that it was just too much of a compromise to operate any business in China:
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
Except maybe, for one that’s already successful…
A consortium led by Walt Disney Co is in advanced talks to buy into China’s largest in-bus digital media and advertising company…Google was expected to take only a small stake in the Bus Online deal, while Disney aimed to take the greater part, said the sources, adding that no agreement had been signed yet.
Wow, Google! That stance against China lasted all of four weeks!
Here we were thinking that you were putting your foot down so that other US companies might be able to get behind your efforts to stop censorship in China, when all along you were looking for a back door into the country.
Buying a stake in a successful Chinese company kind of gives credibility to the suggestion that you only backed out of China, because you weren’t able to compete. After all, if you were on such moral high-ground, you wouldn’t be buying into a company that already plays nicely with the Chinese government.
Would you?
China Reminds Others: Don’t Get Any Ideas
Google has decided to stop censoring its search results in China as mandated by the Chinese government—even if that means shuttering their search business there. The Chinese government has responded, reminding us all that they’re in control of the Internet in China, and nobody else should get any ideas from Google’s ploy.
Naturally, China also condemned the cyber attack (which originated in China and targeted over 30 companies, according to Reuters) and said that they are against piracy. They stated that the government has a duty to shape public opinion through means like the Internet.
Which, of course, is antithetical to one of the most basic, inalienable rights recognized by Americans and further protected by the First Amendment. But hey, to each his own, I guess.
While some experts argue there may be room for negotiations, many think that Google will have to leave the search market in China if they don’t comply to the government’s wishes. It’s possible that Google might retain other businesses in China, like Google Voice or its book scanning project, especially since just this week they made concessions to the government to try to reach a deal.
Interestingly, although Google says that the cyber attack targeted at Chinese human rights activists’ Gmail accounts may have actually originated with the Chinese government, China insists that they must censor the Internet to protect people, online and off. During this time of “social conflicts” (um, mightn’t these be the same social conflicts afflicting the nation 20 years ago?), they must proscribe what content their subjects citizens can see. They also argue, “Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security.”
A vigil began outside Google’s Beijing office Wednesday night. While they control a minority share of the market (Baidu says 17%, Analysis International says 32%), their users are highly loyal.
What do you think? Will China give any ground? Will Google keep any of its businesses in the Middle Kingdom?
Yahoo: Pay No Attention to the 10 Year Search Deal: Look at What’s New on Delicious!
Not to be all Wizard-of-Oz on us, but Yahoo really doesn’t want us to pay attention to the man behind the curtain (Steve Ballmer). No, they want to focus us on their new SERP and their new Delicious search tools and fresh bookmarks.
Don’t you worry—don’t think for one moment that I, the paragon of journalistic integrity, could be distracted so easily from decrying Yahoo’s abdication of control over its search—ooh, shiny emailing and tweeting tools!
So Delicious does have some cool new stuff to show off—and maybe it’s not just a distraction ploy. Maybe it’s a ploy to remind us that Yahoo can still do cool new stuff. 
Anyway, Delicious has a new search tool to help its users find bookmarks (theirs and others’) more easily. Yahoo says “with advanced timeline and tag filtering controls so that you can search within a given date range or filter the results by tag. We’ve also enhanced the search results page to display rich content including YouTube videos with inline playback, Flickr images, and Yelp local data when applicable.”
Delicious has also added a feature to highlight new and popular bookmarks—but not on the Delicious site. The Fresh Bookmarks tab on the homepage features up-and-coming bookmarks (gee, no other social site has ever done that )—the bookmarks that are most popular on Twitter (as opposed to the most popular bookmarks on Delicious, which are under the Popular Bookmarks tab).
On this new feature yesterday, the Delicious blog quotes Wired, who touted the predecessor app, TweetNews, as possibly “the best mashup we’ve ever seen.” Hopefully the Delicious version gets the same positive reception.
Finally, Delicious also added more social features to the add bookmark page. You can add recipients in the Send field—and get the option to email or even tweet bookmarks.
Delicious looks to be doing a good job of adapting to the most popular social site with the media today, instead of decrying Twitter as a poor man’s competitor.
What do you think? Will these new features be enough to keep Delicious users happy—and relying on Delicious? Or does this just push more users toward Twitter?
