Men are more likely than women (32% vs. 28%) to use work as primary location. Higher income households are more likely to say that work is the main location from where they access the Internet.

Respondents said that surfing while on the job is often not work related, with 26 percent of online time at work spent on personal activities. Men spend more time online at work on personal tasks than women (28% vs. 24%). The youngest age group, 18-24 year olds, spends 34 percent of online time at work surfing for personal reasons.

When asked why they surf the web at work for personal use, 33 percent said to stay informed during the day. Twenty percent cited boredom and 18 percent said to stay in contact with family and friends.

Fifty- one percent said they have shopped online while at work. Men are more likely than women (56% vs. 45%) to shop online while on the job. Three out of five respondents with household incomes over $100,000 shop online while at work. Tasks while shopping online include purchases, researching features, comparison shopping, locating stores and searching for last minute deals.

Only 28 percent of employees feel guilty about using the Internet on company time, but women are more likely to feel guilt than men (31% vs. 25%). Only 30 percent of respondents were worried that their employer might be tracking their Internet usage.

"It’s clear from our research that the Internet is an integral part of work time – both for completing job duties, but also to conduct personal activities. That’s not a huge surprise since the lines have been blurred between work and personal time," said Jarvis Coffin, CEO of Burst.

"The real opportunity is that the Internet allows marketers to reach the workday audience efficiently, surrounded by relevant work or personal content."

Another obvious patent gets paid off by Apple. Apple has agreed to pay Burst a $10 million payment for infringing on its 1990 streaming video technology patent.

Singapore officials have a smash rap video hit on YouTube. It has been views over 80,000 times over the last five days alone. It goes to show that it is much easier to get famous than rich with web video.

There is a growing concern over so-called in-text ads according to an article in BusinessWeek. These are the ads where words in articles are double underlined and mousing over them causes a temporary pop-up. The problem is that these ads are not part of the intended editorial context of the journalist writing the article. Personally, I think these ads are highly annoying and distract from reading the article. You won’t find them here at WebProNews anytime soon.

The looming advertising recession could actually increase targeted Internet ad spending. When sales are down advertisers want to get the biggest bang for their buck and that means more search and niche Internet ad buys.

New features are coming to Microsoft’s IM according to a leaked report. Features include a SPIM reporting feature that helps users fight IM based phishing and spam.

A post by Rand Fishkin’s father outlines why the original Google PageRank forumla is flawed. It is an insightful piece with lots of diagrams too!

Because the Internet is viewed as a better place to find information on candidates, televised debates could have less impact in the minds of voters.

eMarketer Senior Analyst Ben Macklin says the Internet is a major benefit to office seekers.

"The direct response to political issues that the Internet can provide harks back to the very origins of democracy in ancient Greece, where the citizens of the day were not only empowered but obliged to participate in the decisions of the city-state," says Mr. Macklin.

"Perhaps the Internet can likewise empower the citizenship to participate in decisions that affect them and to give people a real sense that they are being represented."

Just over half (50.7%) of voters in the Burst study said they would watch a video online at a presidential candidate’s Web site. Men (50.1%) were more likely than women (43.9%) to watch a candidate’s video online.

In a separate study by MSHC Partners conducted by Beneson Strategy Group found that digital video recorders (DVRs) are being used skip political messages. The report notes as DVR ownership rises, the percentage of political ads that will be ignored will increase.

Hal Malchow of MSHC Partners says the consequences for televised political ads are multiple.

"As DVR ownership grows, TV will become less efficient," said Mr. Malchow. "Cable television, with its hundreds of channels, has made it increasingly difficult to reach the entire electorate, compared to the days of dominance by three major networks. Between DVRs and cable television, political ads are losing their punch."

As per the deal, Yahoo! provides its services to AT&T subscribers and is paid for every monthly subscriber. There is an excerpt of the news post at Techcrunch:

 AT&T now wants to overhaul its Yahoo deal, according to a person familiar with the issue. Instead of paying Yahoo a percent of the revenue from its broadband business, AT&T wants to offer Yahoo only a cut of revenue from the sale of products Yahoo provides, such as from its music and photo services, this person says.

One reason AT&T now believes it shouldn’t have to share broadband subscription revenue is that the phone company has been approached by other Internet companies offering to pay to reach its broadband customers, says the person. Google over the past year has played a high-profile role in paying companies that help expand its online services and advertising. Those offers, bankrolled by Google’s Internet ad success, have roiled the market for deals structured like Yahoo and AT&T’s — as Google pays partners rather than charges them.

If Yahoo! loses the deal it will be serious bad news for them. Despite Panama, Yahoo! can’t pull off that kind of revenue from elsewhere in near future. In fact, the bigger concern would be that AT&T might not be the last one to pull the plug on Yahoo! If a mass migration to Google (in that case, MSN too) begins, the second biggest search company could turn turtle. As GigaOM conjectures:

Of course there is the other option – AT&T buying Yahoo! Stranger things have happened! 

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A quick scan of blog posts in Technorati show some people saying it’s the largest product recall in consumer electronics history. Others say Dell has issued a recall for the computers themselves (no, it’s just the batteries).

Many posts I see make reference to the recent cases where Dell laptops have burst into flames, events that clearly triggered the recall announcement.

It’s worth mentioning that the batteries are manufactured by Sony not by Dell. But will anyone make any differentiation in relation to that? It’s doubtful. As far as most people will care, it’s a Dell computer battery. So on the face of it, it’s Dell’s issue not Sony’s, although Bloomberg reports that Sony may share the costs of Dell’s recall.

If I had a Dell laptop, I’d think twice about leaving it running unattended whether or not that laptop is on the list of models affected by the battery recall. And if I were in the market for a new laptop, this battery issue would add a big negative for Dell when I compare different brands and models.

Anyway, they’ve announced the recall and have launched a special website with detailed information.

Some people are saying this is a crisis for Dell.

Yes, I think it is. A crisis to do with Dell’s overall reputation and a crisis of customer confidence in the products they’ve bought.

It’s not the battery recall itself that makes for the crisis, though. I think this latest high-visibility issue just adds icing to Dell’s cake of woes. That’s the crisis.

Last year’s saga of poor Dell customer service has become enshrined in the phrase Dell Hell – just Google that and see what you get. Most recently, there is Dell’s questionable behaviour in China over PCs people bought being different to what was advertised. Dell has started to address that one by apologizing and offering refunds.

Yet all these things leave a bad taste in your mouth. You start to wonder whether this really is a company you want to do business with. Or invest in.

What Dell does now, and how it communicates what it’s doing, could be a tipping point in salving the company’s reputation. It could easily go the other way, too. Direct2Dell, the corporate blog Dell launched last month, should play a prominent role in their overall communication, as no doubt it will. For instance, there are two good posts there
about the battery recall with the beginnings of conversations with customers.

But it’s what Dell do rather than what they say that will have a lasting impact on what people think of Dell. And that will impact Dell’s fortunes. The company will report its latest financial results in two days’ time. More interesting, perhaps, will be the future earnings guidance they offer and what they say about their marketplace.

What will be equally interesting about that earnings announcement will be the people who will write about it and blog it, either live or subsequently, whether they are bloggers or mainstream media journalists. What opinions will people form? What will they say in relation to the cake of reputation woes? And what will those opinions contribute to any reputation tipping point?

For the record, I own a Dell desktop PC which I bought last year and with which I am extremely happy. I have had my own exasperating experience with Dell recently, but that’s another story.

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Burst Responds To Apple Complaint In Kind

Burst alleges that Apple’s iTunes Music Store, iTunes software, the iPod media players, and Apple’s QuickTime Streaming products infringe on patents owned by Burst, and the company wants to put an end to Apple’s infringement.

The company came out ahead in a lawsuit against Microsoft last year, garnering a $60 million settlement and a license to use Burst technology. In its April 17 filing, Burst alleges that its technology has been essential to Apple’s success, providing it with a critical audio and video-on-demand media delivery solution.

Apple never licensed the Burst technology when it launched the iPod and iTunes four years ago. They have led the company back to profitability thanks to the generous margins Apple enjoys on sales of its iPod hardware.

Said Burst.com Chairman & CEO Richard Lang: “While we had hoped to avoid litigation and negotiate a reasonable license fee, it is Apple’s own actions that have forced our hand. We now look to the courts to reaffirm Burst’s rights as innovators and to be paid fairly for our widely acknowledged contributions to the industry.”

In late 2004, Burst sent Apple copies of its patents and a request that Apple consider licensing its technology. Though the companies have talked about such licensing, they never found a common ground for agreeing on terms.

The Burst technology patents cover methods for delivering audio or video content at faster than playback speed, essentially a speedy download of that content. Burst filed those patents in 1988 and received the first one in 1990.

The company then demonstrated its technology in 1991, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Burst claims it met with Apple employees at that time and had contact with them through parts of that year. “Certainly no later than the year 2000, Apple became aware of Burst’s patents,” Burst said in its counterclaim.

Some have drawn parallels between the Burst/Apple battle and the one between Research In Motion and NTP Technologies. That case ended with a settlement that paid NTP $612.5 million. Damages from Apple in a favorable decision for Burst could be worth $200 million or more, a Burst lawyer noted in BusinessWeek.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

If these affiliate networks that were pulling in dollars hand over fist through readily available automated click-fraud software like he saidif you really could make yourself invisible and scam the industry out of millionswhy bother with a lawsuit?

AIT is suing a company that pulls in monthly 20 times what AIT brings in a year. David, meet Goliath. AIT, meet Google.

Figuring out exactly what Briggs is talking about is not easy. AIT took over the lead for Click Defense in a class-action lawsuit against Google alleging the search advertising company does nothing to combat click-fraud. The suit alleges that a good percentage of Google’s earnings comes from people scamming the industry.

And there are websites that promote this behavior. I-Faker is one of them.

“I-FAKER sends as many unique fake hits a day as your server can handle. Using PHP, it routes HTTP get requests through a massive list of anonymous proxy servers which can be defined by you. Even banners on your site get impressions! This is the most advanced software of its kind. It is not only a fake hit generator, but it can in conjunction with your ad tracker improve your site profits. Our fake traffic script is absolutely one of its kind on the web.”

How does this work exactly? It may look like this page that Briggs mentioned, that appears to use a PHP script to do exactly that type of routing.

“We can’t tell what [linkz] is clicking on,” said Briggs, “but it’s clicking on something.”

The phenomenon may be a fraudulent offshoot of what John Battelle calls the “type-in” traffic market.

“[T]hey own a bunch of URLs, and when internet users type a word into the address bar (expecting it to resolve to something useful) or misspell a legit URL, often times one of Name Development’s URLs comes up as the resolved address. Name Development then sticks a sh*tload of AdSense or Overture links on the resulting page, and voila, free money!

These sites are often confused as clickfraud pages, and in fact, the do look exactly like robot or Indian click farm fodder. I would not be surprised, in fact, if some percentage of same folks who are playing the “type in traffic” game might also be dabbling, perhaps on the side, in some click fraud as well.”

While crafty, setting up one of these affiliate networks isn’t necessarily fraudulent, just an exploitative and opportunistic niche market. But with the availability of click-fraud software as advertised on I-Faker and also ClickingAgent, that affiliate network can become an even bigger cash cow in record time.

Briggs equates the network with an analogy involving a turnstile and a brick-and-mortar shop. Some stores have turnstiles to count the number of visitors that come in. The storeowner estimates that he pulls in an average of $100 for every visitor. Someone on the street says he can pull in more customers for $10 per referral. The same guy pays his friends $2 to enter the store over and over. But they never buy anything. The owner’s average per customer decreases dramatically and the store’s referrals are bogus.

“I may do a lot of things,” said Briggs, ” but I don’t lie, cheat, or steal, because it’s wrong. The temptation is there because it’s so easy.”

Briggs believes that if Google and other PPC engines continue to do nothing while profiting handsomely from click-fraud, then the Internet advertising will burst.

So far Google has not commented on the lawsuit, other than they are reviewing the motion papers.

Microsoft will pay $60 million to Burst for the settlement of all claims and for a non-exclusive license (without sub-license rights) to Burst’s patent portfolio. Burst’s lawsuit, originally filed in June of 2002, asserted patent, trade secret and antitrust claims.

“While we were confident of prevailing in this lawsuit, we have been open from the beginning to finding a reasonable way to resolve this case,” said Tom Burt, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for Microsoft. “Securing a license to the Burst patent portfolio through this settlement allows us to focus on the continued development and deployment of Windows Media technologies to deliver the ultimate media experience to our partners and customers.”

Burst stated that the patent license resolves the litigation with Microsoft and validates the Burst patents as pioneering intellectual property. Burst Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Richard Lang, explained that, “We spent over a decade developing and patenting the technology in anticipation of the markets that are now emerging. Microsoft taking a license validates the innovation of the burst technology embodied in the underlying patent portfolio. With this action behind us, the company can now focus on its other opportunities.”

A vnunet.com article says, “Microsoft has been making a concerted effort to settle outstanding corporate litigation and clean up its image. In November it settled a long running dispute with Novell, and in April paid $1.6bn to Sun Microsystems. The company has also spent $200m settling class action suits from US states.”

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This agreement makes the second company that is trying to incorporate behavioral marketing with search engine style text ads. AMS will enable BURST to identify and track large segments of its 39.4 million audience that are particularly attractive to advertisers.

Currently, BURST serves its own ads to over 2,000 specialty web sites. Tacoda’s AMS will enable BURST to develop targetable audience segments across its entire network based on more finite criteria such as which stories users read, what kind of ads they click on, and how often they return to similar kind of content.

BURST will also offer the behavioral targeting aspects of AMS in its AdDesktop, a licensed ad serving technology. Current customers of BURST’s AdDesktop deliver over 100 million ads per month and each may choose to target ads behaviorally within their site.

“When you have a total audience the size of BURST’s, the more you know about your users, the better you can serve them ads that they want to see. Better targeted ads means higher click-throughs and sales for our advertisers,” says Jarvis Coffin co-founder of BURST and President and Chief Executive Officer. “While we can infer a great deal about our audiences because the sites we represent have highly specialized content, Tacoda will enable us to build audience segments based on demonstrable user interests. We can then target ads to users anywhere on our network.”

Studies have shown that Tacoda’s behavioral marketed ads generate a higher rate of inquiries, higher in-store traffic, and higher actual sales compared to ROS online advertising.

“This is exactly the kind of environment Tacoda’s AMS was designed to work best in,” says TACODA CEO Dave Morgan. “An audience-centric approach to ad sales is a complement to contextual sales and frees BURST to create new ad inventory outside of high demand sections that may often be sold out. We have several studies that show when visitors see ads in context then later are served a similar ad when they are in a different part of the site, the advertisers get a tremendous lift in response.”

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