WebProNews

Microsoft Sells Fast Search & Transfer Businesses

Perhaps Yahoo has started a trend.  Yesterday, we learned that the company will shut down part of a business it bought two and a half years ago.  Today, there's word that Microsoft's sold some things it picked up while acquiring Fast Search & Transfer in early 2008.

Representatives To Hold Hearing On Internet Gambling

On Thursday, the House Financial Services Committee will discuss legislation introduced by Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) that would regulate online gambling in the United States. The hearing will begin at 10 am EST and will include testimony from leaders in the fields of online security and consumer safety. Experts will describe how current systems and technologies have been successful in blocking minors from gambling online, reducing compulsive gambling and protecting consumers against money laundering, fraud and identity theft.

Digg's New API Allows Digging of Stories and Comments

Digg released a new version of the Digg API today, which lets developers write and contribute data via OAuth. This API supports the digging and burying of both stories and comments.

Google Makes Free Holiday Postcard Offer

It is, of course, the thought that counts.  A message from a friend or loved one means a lot regardless of what form it takes.  Still, physical items tend to have more of an impact, and Google's made a very nice gesture by offering to send out real postcards this holiday season. A Google representative wrote in an email to WebProNews, "As a token of our appreciation to our most enthusiastic fans, we're snail mailing (!) one free holiday postcard on their behalf."

Bing Launches New Maps with Apps

Microsoft has announced the launch of a new Bing Maps beta, which incorporates Streetside and Photosynth imagery. "The new Bing Maps experience also features innovative new mapping applications such as Twitter Maps for real-time updates by area and Local Lens featuring hyperlocal, neighborhood content," a representative for Bing tells WebProNews. There are a number of interesting apps available, which is easily the most interesting part about Bing's new Maps experience:

The Internet is All Over Climategate While the MSM Sleeps

Update: 4:07 PM ET - A complete PDF has been produced that succinctly explains Climategate: PDF Doc.

Social Networks Feed Holiday Shopping

If online retailers have a profitable holiday season - or even if they don't - they'll owe a "thank you" to social networks for helping out.  New data from Hitwise indicates that retail sites are receiving a significant (and ever-increasing) amount of traffic from the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Perfect 10 Comes Out Swinging at Google Again

Those who have been following the search industry for some time, may recall that Google had some legal issues with the (former) magazine Perfect 10 (nsfw). The company, which ceased publication of its magazine, but still operates on the web, has issued a press release saying that its five year battle with the search giant is "about to heat up."

Cyber Monday Sales Reach $887 Million

Cyber Monday sales were up 5 percent compared to a year ago reaching $887 million and matching the heaviest online spending day on record, December 9, 2008, according to the latest report from comScore. "We've seen an encouraging start to the online holiday shopping season and it would appear that retailers' aggressive and early marketing efforts have so far succeeded in persuading consumers to open their wallets online," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

Google Does More To Appease Disgruntled News Publishers

Google has created a new web crawler specifically for Google News. What this means is that publishers who do not want Google News to index their content can more easily control that. That also applies to publishers who don't wish to completely cut out indexing, but wish to limit/restrict certain elements of their content from being indexed.