WebProNews

Google Seeking Not To Cross The Creepy Line

Google CEO Eric Schmidt while appearing on Fox Business made some interesting comments about Google's emergence as a huge Microsoft-like business power. I thought most interesting was Schmidt's statement about Google becoming like Microsoft, "Hopefully, we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsot made ten years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened with them". Schmidt elaborated:

Holiday Shoppers Turning To Social Media And Internet

Digital technologies continue to drive a new approach to shopping, with social media and mobile phones becoming key influencers this holiday season, according to a new survey of holiday retail spending and trends by Deloitte. Social media is gaining traction with 17 percent of consumers planning to use social media during their holiday shopping, and 60 percent plan to use it to find discounts, coupons and sales information, More than half (53%) plans to use social media to research gift ideas, while 52 percent plan to check the gift wish lists of friends and family.

10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email

Update: VerticalResponse CEO Janine Popick has written a separate piece adding 10 more reasons.

Mozilla Celebrates The Fifth Birthday Of Firefox

Mozilla is celebrating the fifth birthday of its Firefox browser today. Mozilla says in the first four days of launch, more than 1 million people had downloaded Firefox 1.0 Now that number is at 330 million users globally, accounting for almost a quarter of all Internet users. Currently Firefox is available in more than 70 languages and offers users more than 7,000 add-ons to customize their browsing experience.

Buy A Blackberry From Walmart Get A $100 Gift Card

Walmart has introduced yet another holiday promotion, this time the retailer is offering a $100 gift card with the purchase of any Blackberry device, both in stores and online.   Staring Saturday, November 14 at 8 am through November 20, shoppers will receive a $100 Walmart Gift Card with the purchase of Blackberry devices with a two-year contract.

Hacking Ring Indicted For $9 Million Fraud

A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted eight East Europeans on charges of hacking into a computer network operated by the credit card processing company RBS WorldPay, the U.S. Department of Justice said today. The 16-count indictment alleges the group used sophisticated hacking techniques to compromise data encryption used by RBS WorldPay to protect customer data on payroll debit cards. Payroll debit cards are used by some companies to pay their employees.

Bing Maps Gets an Upgrade

Microsoft announced that it has made some changes to Bing Maps. Changes include the color of the navigation bar, draggble routes, zoom bar changes, command parsing, embedding, dynamic computing, new navigation, speed, and Bing Maps will no longer stop at the international date line, but will wrap around the world continuously.

Amazon Kindle For PC Now Available

Amazon.com has released its free Kindle for PC application that allows users to read books on their personal computer without having to own the e-reader device. The move comes as Amazon aims to make it s Kindle content available on a broader range of devices. Kindle books can now be read on the iPhone, iPod touch, Kindle DX and now a PC.

Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Webinars and podcasts are the most popular social media resources for business people, used by 69 percent of those who turn to such channels for business information, according to a new study by Business.com. Facebook is the primary social network on which consumer-focused companies maintain one or more profiles, cited by 83 percent of respondents compared with 45 percent for Twitter. Business-to-business companies maintain a presence on both social sites with 77 percent maintaining a profile on Facebook and 73 percent on Twitter.

Google Offering Free Wi-Fi In Airports During The Holidays

Google said Tuesday it is working with airports in the U.S. as well as Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi as a "holiday gift" through January 15, 2010. The free Wi-Fi is available in 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. As a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely.