Smartphones will shake up paid content debate

Media companies longing to bring a paid-for culture to the Internet might just get what they want if they pay more attention to the smartphone revolution that is changing the way people access the Web.

Huge numbers now use mobile phones instead of desktop computers to get online — a development that has spawned whole new business models in China, the world’s biggest Internet market.

Paying to read content on the Web, an outlandish idea as recently as a year ago, is slowly but surely establishing itself as the next business model in the Western media mainstream, spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp

Now the cows are on Twitter

If your Twitter friends aren’t interesting, you can now follow a dozen lactating bovines and read their teat tweets after they’ve been milked by a robot.

“As far as we know they’re the only cows tweeting,” said Marcel O’Gorman who is behind the University of Waterloo’s critical media lab project.

The tweeting cows are poking fun at the popular Twitter network and are meant to push people to think about where their food comes from and the high-tech nature of farming, he said.

Trend is toward specialty content and away from social networks

The current trend is users 35 and older are spending more time on social-networking sites, while the younger are more mobile based. So the average age of Facebook users is increasing, with users 55 and above growing the most rapidly, but the inverse is true for Twitter, where the most rapid growth in the 2 (!) to 11 year old segment. But the mobile social-networking scene is also more fragmented than the computer-based one, and there’s a new raft of mobile-based services that are growing rapidly, such as social-networking site Gowalla and dating site Flirtomatic.

Tweet quantity doesn’t affect retweets

For several weeks, I tweeted the same type of content I always have — just more often. On average, I tweet about once an hour, for seven to ten hours each week day. I noticed that the active, high quality Twitter users  that I follow tend to tweet at least three times per hour, so I decided to emulate their process and also tweet two or three times per hour.

Mobile Local Ads Are WHERE It’s At

The next logical step in the location-based marketing puzzle today with the debut of WHERE ads, a “hyper-local ad network” that aims to serve consumers with more geographically and contextually relevant ads than those provided by standard third-party ad networks. uLocate will make WHERE Ads available to other publishing platforms as well.

If you’re not already familiar with the WHERE mobile application, here’s a primer:

www.sex.com domain on auction block

Sex.com, often touted as one of the most valuable Internet domain names, is due to head to the auction block next week. DOM Partners LLC, a New Jersey lender that backed a 2006 purchase of the domain name for a reported $14 million, is foreclosing on the Internet property, and is due to auction it.

Bidding for the Internet property, the tumultuous past of which includes several lawsuits and two books, is due to start at $1 million. The auctions of simple domain names are seen as rare opportunities for Internet entrepreneurs. An auction for the www.pizza.com domain name in 2008 attracted bids above $2.5 million.
Reuters

Latest monetization model is based on prestige or achievement.

Prestige as it applies to social gaming is pretty simple: You play a game, advance levels in that game or accumulate goods, and then broadcast the advancement your social network (Facebook, Twitter, Hi5). Prestige turns into real money in any one of several ways. Game players are granted some amount of free virtual currency at the start of play. That currency is used to purchase virtual goods or services that allow the player to advance levels. When the user runs out of currency, he/she can replenish it by paying for more currency with a credit card or PayPal account; by taking a survey; by taking a lead-generation offer like a Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) trial subscription; or by watching videos (gWallet offers this).

Apple iPad Available For Pre-Order From March 12, On Sale From April 3

Apple just announced that its tablet device, the iPad, will be available in the U.S. on April 3. See announcement below.

When Apple unveiled the device a few months ago, we were told it would be available by March. Rumors began to swirl recently that shipment of the devices was delayed until April. According to the release, the Wi-Fi models of the iPad will be available starting April 3, with the Wi-Fi and 3G models rolled out by late April. S

Pricing has remained the same, with the basic Wi-Fi enabled model starting at $499. Pricing is as follows: $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB.   Tech Crunch

Ads Posted on Facebook Strike Some as Off-Key

Facebook  pages are also home to countless ads from smaller companies that can be funny, weird or just plain creepy — those suggesting you are, say, eligible to get a free iPad because you are exactly 26 years old, or entreaties to see what your offspring would look like if you had a child with a celebrity.

Odd Web ads, like the dancing women promoting mortgage brokers, are not new. But on social networks like Facebook, where people go to communicate with one another, advertisers seem to be trying especially hard to intrude on the conversation.

Google refines search by location

Location has become an important part of the way we search. If you’re a foodie looking for restaurant details, food blogs or the closest farmer’s market, location can be vital to helping you find the right information. Starting today, we’ve added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding “Minneapolis” to your query and missing webpages that only say “St. Paul” or “Twin Cities.” Check it out by doing a search, clicking on “show options” and selecting “Nearby.”