Hot Topics » Iran • Michael Jackson • Going Green • Air France • China • North Korea • more topics »
A battle is brewing over U.S. state sales taxes on online purchases. Internet retailers Amazon.com and Overstock.com are scaling back their operations in states that demand they collect these taxes. While this won't dent their revenues much, it foreshadows a larger clash over the taxation of internet commerce. Cash-strapped states are firing the first shots.
A new Mafia video game has presented Twitter with an offer, but it's one that Twitter thinks it can refuse.
Social networking site MySpace said Tuesday that it plans to slash nearly 30% of its workforce, leaving it with 1,000 employees.
There has perhaps never been a better time to drop your $60-a-month cable bill and subsist purely on free web video.
In the brief history of Web sites, there are few if any second chances. Remember Friendster?
Users spend more time on Facebook than any other social network site. Much more. But other sites are growing quickly, and experts say no social network is safely on top of the market.
President Obama announced Friday he is creating the post of cyber security coordinator to oversee "a new comprehensive approach to securing America's digital infrastructure."
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday offered Internet users a first glimpse at Bing, its fresh attempt to gain ground in the online search market.
Google spent Wednesday morning trying to get developers excited about the next generation of Web technologies by showing off how future Web applications will mimic desktop apps.
When Hulu, the online video joint venture of GE's NBC and News Corp.'s Fox (and now Disney's ABC), launched last year, CEO Jason Kilar said its mission was "to help people find and enjoy the world's premium content when, where, and how they want it." Perhaps what he meant to say was, "Anytime, anywhere, anyhow - except on a TV screen."
A battle is brewing over U.S. state sales taxes on online purchases. Internet retailers Amazon.com and Overstock.com are scaling back their operations in states that demand they collect these taxes. While this won't dent their revenues much, it foreshadows a larger clash over the taxation of internet commerce. Cash-strapped states are firing the first shots.
A new Mafia video game has presented Twitter with an offer, but it's one that Twitter thinks it can refuse.
Social networking site MySpace said Tuesday that it plans to slash nearly 30% of its workforce, leaving it with 1,000 employees.
There has perhaps never been a better time to drop your $60-a-month cable bill and subsist purely on free web video.
In the brief history of Web sites, there are few if any second chances. Remember Friendster?
Users spend more time on Facebook than any other social network site. Much more. But other sites are growing quickly, and experts say no social network is safely on top of the market.
President Obama announced Friday he is creating the post of cyber security coordinator to oversee "a new comprehensive approach to securing America's digital infrastructure."
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday offered Internet users a first glimpse at Bing, its fresh attempt to gain ground in the online search market.
Google spent Wednesday morning trying to get developers excited about the next generation of Web technologies by showing off how future Web applications will mimic desktop apps.
When Hulu, the online video joint venture of GE's NBC and News Corp.'s Fox (and now Disney's ABC), launched last year, CEO Jason Kilar said its mission was "to help people find and enjoy the world's premium content when, where, and how they want it." Perhaps what he meant to say was, "Anytime, anywhere, anyhow - except on a TV screen."
A few nights ago Yulinar (full name withheld), a 23-year-old insurance agent in Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta, was in bed doing her usual ritual before falling asleep: updating her Facebook status and checking her friends' updates.
In today's tough job market, it's critical to stand out. So how to make sure your application gets noticed: A flawless cover letter? Killer résumé? Glowing reference from the CEO? Not even. In the worst job market in 25 years, building an online presence is crucial to getting a job. Who you connect to, "follow" and "friend" can be just as important as conventional tools like résumés.
Tina Meier, whose daughter was a cyberbully's target, sees new hope online
A post on the Facebook developer blog announces the big application program interface (API) update from the social network that was first reported on Sunday night, which it's calling the Open Stream API.
Alaska's Mount Redoubt towers more than 10,000 feet above sea level, is an active volcano and can send clouds of ash so high that jetliners could be at risk.
It's official: News Corp. has named former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta as its CEO, following reports on Thursday that an announcement was imminent.
One day recently, Cynthia Newton's 12-year-old daughter asked her for help with homework, but Newton didn't want to help her, because she was too busy on Facebook. So her daughter went upstairs to her room and sent an e-mail asking her for help, but Newton didn't see the e-mail, because, well, she was too busy on Facebook.
If mention of The Pirate Bay conjures up images of parrots, peg legs and planks, or geeky jargon like BitTorrent and jailbreak leaves you all at sea, this handy A-Z will help you navigate the choppy waters of the online piracy debate.
It's Sunday night during TNT's coverage of the NBA playoffs, and announcer Kenny Smith, aka "The Jet," is doing push-ups.
The online popularity contest between celebrity Ashton Kutcher and CNN heated up Thursday, with CNN overtaking Kutcher's lead on Twitter just before midnight Thursday.
Ashton Kutcher has challenged CNN to a popularity contest on the social media site Twitter.
Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or getting updates via social-networking tools such as Twitter could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.
Penny Ireland's family is so scattered around the world that Facebook, the popular social networking site, has become the family's No. 1 way to communicate.
Not so long ago, music companies were doing all they could to keep their music away from online video sites. Now Vivendi-owned Universal Music Group is partnering with Google's YouTube to do for music videos what Hulu.com has done for TV. After much speculation, the companies Thursday afternoon announced plans for Vevo.com, a premium music site that will feature all of UMG's artists.
Remember how hard an honest mugger had to work for a living wage back during the pre-Internet holiday shopping season?
Last summer, well after Twitter had become the buzz of the New York and San Francisco Web crowds but months before its current moment at the apogee of Internet hype, I visited the startup at its hip South of Market offices and wrote a feature on the company in Fortune. Its title, "The true meaning of Twitter," now feels like a quaint moment in time when the very definition of the company's name, let alone how you use its product, needed explaining. Twitter had raised $22 million back then, had about 3 million users and was hot.
When a small group of university scientists began linking computers on different campus sites at the very end of the 1960s, they had no idea that their work would one day spiral into a globally-accessible network in which the total number of pages is measured in the tens of billions.
The U.S. military has spent at least $100 million defending its computer network from and responding to cyberattacks, according to a top official responsible for network security.
What's the big deal with Twitter? The online instant update service has become a media sensation and a supposed target for the likes of Google and Facebook. But is it an over-hyped flash in the pan or a real business opportunity? The answer could be a bit of each.
"I kind of value in people not knowing what I'm doing," says the 17 Again star
YouTube is in talks to acquire licensing rights to full-length content from Sony Pictures, home of such films as "The International" and "Spider-Man," sources familiar with the negotiations told CNET News.
Let's face it, very few people enjoy networking. Even for social butterflies, it's a chore; for those of us who are shy, it's as painful as chapped lips on a windy day.
Headlines proclaiming that G-20 activists and police are following each others' activities on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites may give one the impression that a new age of surveillance and political activism has dawned.
Social networking Web sites are set to play a crucial role in protests ahead of next week's G-20 meeting of world leaders in London as demonstration organizers and police use Twitter and Facebook as key sources of real-time information and intelligence.
Looking for an online mirror of American economic woes? Check out the professional social networking site LinkedIn, where activity from Lehman Brothers employees and ex-workers spiked 315% from August to September of last year, when the bank was going through bankruptcy proceedings. LinkedIn's fastest growing region? Detroit.
Had a problem with your last trip? Fire up your PC and post something online.
I use a wireless router at home, but it seems that other people on my block do as well! I can see their access point IDs show up in my list. Can they see mine, too -- and is this a problem? What are some things I need to keep in mind when it comes to wireless home network security?
The recession hasn't dampened the mood or attendance at "Spring break for geeks," a.k.a. the annual South By Southwest Interactive conference. Organizers say the crowd will surpass last year's attendance of about 9,000.
When a report of a possible explosive device on the roof of a city parking garage came in to the Lakeland, Florida, Police Department, public safety officials there sprang into action.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Wednesday she is putting a Microsoft executive in charge of protecting the U.S. government's computing systems.
Facebook held no appeal for Peter Lichtenstein. The New Paltz, N.Y., resident had checked out so-called social networking sites before, and he wasn't impressed. ("MySpace," he recalls, "was ridiculous.")
More than 2,100 registered North Carolina sex offenders were found on the social networking site MySpace, the state attorney general's office said Tuesday.
Their paths crossed on YouTube on an August night last year.
Cisco CEO John Chambers likes to talk about his company as the Internet's "plumber" - the company that provides the gear and services on which the world's data services run.
A 15-year-old has created a free-music service by harnessing YouTube's vast library of music videos.
MySpace, the News Corp.-owned social networking site, is off to a rough year. Growth has slowed (the number of U.S. visitors has hovered around 75 million for the last seven months), top talent is leaving the company, and like other media companies, it is feeling the effects of the slowing economy: a MySpace executive this week told FORTUNE that ad sales dipped in January and February.
A torrent of bad economic news is pouring down on Web 2.0 music sites, just like everywhere else. What's surprising is that even amid the horror story that is our economy, some online record stores have impressed music-industry poobahs, say insiders.
This Twitter thing has been coming on like gangbusters. The messaging site has been around for a couple of years, but its popularity seems to have exploded just recently.
In keeping with the democratic nature of user-generated media, Facebook is inviting its 150 million users to help decide how the online gathering place is run.
The social networking site Twitter again stole a march on traditional media when it was the first outlet to publish dramatic pictures of the Turkish Airlines crash.
It took Hulu.com less than a year to become the go-to destination for television-watching on the Web. Hulu even scored a spot on traditional media's biggest stage, a Super Bowl commercial.
The question means little to millions living in poverty with neither electricity nor electronics. But there are also millions now weaving the Web 2.0 ever more tightly into their social fabric -- witness the booming popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites -- so the question seems worth asking.
Showing that its Web application priorities extend to the mobile world, Google on Wednesday demonstrated a version of Gmail for the iPhone that could be used even when the phone had no network connection.
On an otherwise placid holiday weekend, one blog's commentary on a change to Facebook's terms of service created a firestorm of banter on the Web: does the social network claim ownership to any user content on the site, even if the user deletes it?
Under fire from tens of thousands of users, the social networking site Facebook said early Wednesday it is reverting to its old policy on user information -- for now.
Users of social-networking sites such as Facebook risk losing control of their personal information because they are not fully aware of the implications for their privacy, a freedom of information expert warned Wednesday.
Shayna Hefner never expected MySpace to turn her life upside down.
I'm zipping through the streets of Portland, Ore., in a Lincoln Navigator while a "Knight Rider" episode streams over the Internet to a screen mounted to the car's dashboard.
When Corey Wynsma's wife got laid off a few months ago from her graphic design job, the couple did an inventory of their household budget.
Businesses large and small plan to increase their use of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony during the next two years, according to a recent British Telecom survey. Their objectives include increasing collaboration and lowering voice toll costs outside the office.
A Web site started by a student as a way of staying in touch with friends celebrated its fifth birthday Wednesday as a billion-dollar business and a global phenomenon.
MySpace.com has identified and removed 90,000 convicted sex offenders from its popular social-networking site, according to one of the dozens of state attorneys general who pressured the site to beef up its safety standards.
Marilyn Parver never wanted to become a YouTube star. Neither did Iesha Walker.
David Cameron, the leader of the UK's opposition Conservative Party, is discussing whether economic growth should be pursued at the expense of the environment.
Back in my day (a day not long ago, as it turns out), you could go down to the local record shop and plunk down your paper-route money for little disks of plastic that were embedded with the latest sounds of your favorite musical performers.
Significantly increasing the utility and competitiveness of its Web-based e-mail service, Google is enabling an experimental ability to read, write, and search Gmail messages even while not connected to the network.
Devon Kennard gets one question (So, where are you going to college?) as frequently as he does the other (How's the knee?). On Tuesday morning, the star defensive end from Desert Vista High in Phoenix answered one of those questions definitively.
With many workers stuck at their desks during the late-morning swearing-in of President Obama on Tuesday, more people than ever went online to watch live video of the historic inauguration.
The Twitter universe is getting complicated. Or, depending on your viewpoint, ever more useful.
Janis Krums was heading to New Jersey on a ferry when he clicked a snapshot with his iPhone of US Airways Flight 1549 partially submerged in the Hudson River. He uploaded the picture to his Twitter account and then forgot about it as he assisted in the rescue of the plane's passengers.
Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans had never been the subject of a TV commercial, let alone an Internet ad. The 168-year-old business, where third-generation waiters serve gumbo and other Creole delicacies to third-generation customers, had only ever advertised in print and on radio. So last June, the owners decided to drag the restaurant into the 21st century with an ad on YellowPages.com, complete with a promotional video.
As the first president-elect with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, Barack Obama is poised to use the Internet to communicate directly with Americans in a way unknown to previous presidents.
A few days ago we jokingly opined that arguing about the deployment of high-speed data networks was a bit like fighting about world peace: Who could ever quibble with it?
Police in southern New Zealand nabbed a would-be burglar after they posted security camera images of him trying to break into a safe on the popular social networking site, Facebook.
Every day, millions of people use social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to stay in touch with friends, make business contacts and procrastinate at work.
Financially speaking, Web 2.0 has been a total bust.
The Twitter accounts of President-elect Barack Obama, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears, Fox News and 29 others were hacked Monday according to the microblog site, leading to false and inappropriate messages being posted on their accounts.
A new study finds that 54 percent of teens talk about behaviors such as sex, alcohol use, and violence on the social networking giant MySpace -- presenting potential risks even if all they're doing is talking, researchers said Monday.
Move over, Korea and Japan. Australia may soon be the envy of the world when it comes to advanced wireless networks and services.
The Wall Street Journal unleashed a firestorm last week with a page-one article titled, "Google wants its own fast track on the Web." The Journal knew this headline and the words that ran below it would be incendiary.
For the last couple years, depending on who you asked, WiMax was either bound for spectacular success or it was dead on arrival.
Amy Poehler is one of the hottest properties in comedy today, a close second to former "Saturday Night Live" co-star Tina Fey. Anyone who caught Poehler impersonating Hillary Clinton or rapping about Sarah Palin knows how good she is.
Suleman Ali cashed out just in time.
The incoming president should create a new White House office and appoint a presidential assistant to oversee a "comprehensive national security strategy for cyberspace," a Washington-based think tank recommended Monday.
The networking site shut down her profile claiming she was an impostor – of herself!
The singer Gil Scott Heron once declared that "the revolution will not be televised."
If you visit YouTube.com - where close to half of all online video is seen - the power-to-the-people motto "Broadcast yourself" appears at the top of your browser. Lately, though, it's hard not to wonder if the "you" in YouTube doesn't increasingly refer to "them": the Big Kahuna media companies whose video wares have been gaining more notice both on YouTube and elsewhere on the web.
What happens when a business throws out its scheduling and collaboration tools and replaces them with Google's low-cost, online business software? To find out, we at Blumsday migrated our entire shop of roughly a dozen employees and contractors to test out Google Apps.
For months, YouTube has been making a pitch to Hollywood studios: Give us your films, and we'll make you money.
Ever since John McCain and Howard Dean in 2000 showed the Internet's potential for fundraising, the question was always whether the Web could be effective at "GOTV," or getting-out-the-vote.
Plenty of big companies - from Google to Earthlink - have tried setting up citywide Wi-Fi networks and failed. San Francisco-based Meraki, a wireless company spun off of a research project at MIT, is taking a different tack.
Certain predicted technological revolutions are more myth than reality.
Saturday Night Live isn't the only brand boosted by Tina Fey's Sarah Palin routines. If you're one of the millions who's watched those skits online within a week of their original broadcast, chances are you've seen them at Hulu.com. It's a big moment for the free video site.
The tanking economy is bad for employment. Ergo, it's good for LinkedIn.
Recently, Nat Hays, chairman of Brooklyn's independent +1 Records, wanted to break a record by one of his label's new bands, The Morning Benders. So he went straight to Apple's iTunes Music Store.
Congress has cleared the way for a potential agreement intended to save the emerging Internet radio market from a crippling hike in copyright royalty rates
For five years, Apple's iTunes Music Store has been the Internet's most successful music store. But as music publishers have sought a higher share of its proceeds, Apple has threatened to shutter iTunes.
MySpace Music will introduce the masses to free legal music online, but littler sites, like Imeem, Last.fm and SpiralFrog, have been offering the same service for ages
Starting today, the new MySpace Music service will offer its members more than 2 million tunes from the catalogs of four major music labels -- for free.
Anytime you tinker with something that millions of people use daily, you're going to upset some folks. Remember those redesigned $20 bills a decade ago -- the ones people said looked like Monopoly money?
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
Video
Photos
