WebProNews

Google's Lively Receives A Death Sentence

So much for the idea of a second Second Life.  Lively, launched by Google this July, has already been deemed something of a failure, and the search giant's issued a notice that it will more or less kill the collection of virtual rooms at the end of December.

Yahoo Glues Together Relevancy

Yahoo has released the beta version of a new service called Yahoo Glue. What Yahoo Glue does is piece together results from different popular sites and bring them to you on one page. For example, a search for an NFL team will bring up results from Wikipedia, Yahoo Sports (including stats, rosters, schedules, etc), YouTube, Yahoo Maps, Yelp, Flickr, Yahoo Groups, and Yahoo Answers.

Google Wants Your Questions for D.C. Meeting

Google is hosting a three-part series of town hall meetings at the company's Washington D.C. office, starting with one about economic growth and the technology infrastructure needed to "foster innovation." The meeting is aimed at helping set the technology policy agenda for the incoming Congress and Administration. Google says:

eHarmony Settles Lawsuit, Starts Gay Site

eHarmony is releasing a new same-sex matching service starting by the end of March. This service is the product of legal problems the company has been dealing with out of New Jersey and California. A gay man in Jersey sued the company for not catering to same-sex relationships as a violation of his rights in the state of New Jersey, and earlier in the year, a gay woman from San Francisco filed a suit against the company for being denied access to eHarmony's service because of her sexuality.

Gmail Brings Style And Color To Your Account

Google has introduced a slew of new themes and colors to Gmail that allow users to customize the look and feel they want.The Official Gmail Blog gives more details. "Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven't been an integral part of Gmail."

Google Docs Offers New Holiday Templates

Google Docs has received a lot of attention lately, most of which was focused on its miniscule market share.  Google would like to address that issue, and as the holiday season approaches, it's doing so by unveiling some new templates.

TypePad's Blogger Bailout For Laid-Off Journalists

TypePad has introduced a "bailout" program for journalists who have been laid off or expect to be.

Ballmer Ignores Yang, Rules Out Yahoo Acquisition

Even the harshest critics of Steve Ballmer will have to admit one thing: in regards to not buying Yahoo, he's been consistent for a long time now.  At a shareholder meeting today, Ballmer said that he still has no interest in a total acquisition, and Yahoo's stock has taken a nosedive of around 20.9 percent as a result.

Iran Blocks Millions Of Web Sites

The Iranian government is currently blocking in excess of five million Web sites for hosting content that it deems as unethical and anti-Islamic.During a conference in Iran, the Prosecutor General Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi said most of the sites were blocked because they "contained unethical content" such as pornography and anti-Islamic sentiment.