Citysearch was founded by Bill Gross to enable users to utilize search engines to locate Yellow Pages and newspaper listings to locate those products and services online.  With Citysearch, users benefit by fast and easy searching and results, and it provides a space for advertisers.

After changing business models annually for the past decade, Citysearch has begun to embrace the decentralized nature of the World Wide Web, spreading its content throughout it.  Citysearch’s ads from local businesses can follow its content, allowing it to profit no matter where a Citysearch listing is seen.
Citysearch is utilizing Facebook Connect to allow users to sign into their Facebook accounts, and link to their existing Citysearch account.  By doing this, reviews written are published on both Citysearch and the Facebook news feed.  Users can check out reviews of other Facebook users with Citysearch.

By giving up some control, Citysearch stands to gain a lot of ground.  Users will begin to see the word Citysearch on the profiles of their friends, and it will spread like wildfire through the social networks, where they hope to stimulate a conversation format of reviews.

In recent trends of apprehension and rejection of change, it is quite a change to see a company embrace the changes of the future and learn to profit from them.  Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your Fort Lauderdale web design and interactive marketing solution.

Five universities and I.B.M Research have received a $4.9 million dollar grant from the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for a long-term venture in cognitive computing.  Cognitive computing is an engineering field that is just on the outer edge of artificial intelligence.  Participants hope to engineer the mind by reverse engineering the brain, according to Dharmendra Modha-the leader of IBM’s cognitive computing program.

Computers have the capacity to excel at tasks where the domains they operate in are equipped with clear rules, such as chess.  IBM’s Deep Blue (for which Deep Blue Interactive was named) beat chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, becoming the first artificial intelligence to defeat human intelligence.  On the other hand, computers do not excel at problems with no clear rules, such as locating lost items.  Can computers be given higher levels of cognition? Can computers perform sensation, perception, reasoning and learning if given clear rules on the matter?

Many argue that these are human emotions that cannot be implemented into a machine, or artificial intelligence.  Others believe that pursuing cognitive computing will advance many industries and can be conquered by understanding the brain’s workings.  Still others worry that the brain’s workings will prove to be far too complex to be modeled for science. 

The well-funded research will hopefully further the path toward a higher level of internet functionality and a better understanding of how the mind works.  Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your Fort Lauderdale interactive marketing and web design firm.

On Wednesday, it was announced in Washington that a new group, The Future of Privacy Forum, had been formed.  The group, initially funded by AT&T, was founded by Jules Polonetsky and Christopher Wolf.  Polonetsky is the former chief privacy officer of AOL and prior to that DoubleClick, and Wolf is a partner in Proskauer Rose, and has represented AT&T on privacy law matters. 

It is the hope of Mr. Polonetsky that The Future of Privacy Forum will locate a happy medium in the space between businesses that do not want privacy restrictions on what they do with consumer data and the many privacy advocates who want to see permission given for data used.

The Future Privacy Forum has an impressive agenda.  Items on the agenda include having websites be much more upfront with users about methods they use to collect and use the personal data they collect, as opposed to hiding behind cryptic privacy policies.  The forum also hopes to create new technology that will make it simple for users to communicate their preferences on what data is used about them, rather than relying on browser cookies, which can be difficult to control and easy to erase.  They hope to strategically define how companies need to be careful with personal information about people, including what they search for, or how many children they have-even if no names are collected in the process.

Speculation about The Future of Privacy Forum among other companies include that it is a business group attempting to block new government intervention in the advertising business (think Google & Yahoo’s ad fate),  still others see it as a slice of a growing attempt to prevent Google from gaining any further influence than it already has.  Microsoft in particular has been lobbying in Washington about privacy, a topic it views as Google’s jugular.

It is important to note that Google uses less personal data than many other internet-based companies use, and has acquired DoubleClick, which will surely add to its advertising ventures for the future.  Not to mention the idea that AT&T may be feeling a bit threatened by Google’s views on open access to wireless networks and network neutrality, which could undercut AT&T’s ability to profit from its own network and allow Google full access.

The online mogul battles wage on, and things are lined up to become more and more complex in the near future before agreements are settled upon.  Brought to you by Deep Blue Interactive, your integrated marketing and web design firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Yahoo announced on Monday that its chief executive Jerry Yang would step down from that role when the company decides on a replacement.  Mr. Yang is a co-founder of online mogul Yahoo and had assumed control of the company from Terry Semel approximately a year and a half ago.

In a statement, Yahoo said that Mr. Yang would return to his earlier role as “Chief Yahoo”, a corporate visionary role.  Mr. Yang will remain on the Yahoo board.  Yahoo said it would look for potential replacements inside and outside the company.  Rumored potential candidates include Susan Decker, Yahoo’s current president; Dan Rosenweig, the former chief operating officer, and Jonathan Miller, the former chief executive of AOL.

Recent months have less than ideal for Yahoo, with Mr. Yang rejecting a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft and falling short on a proposed advertising deal with Google.  The deal with Microsoft was worth $33 a share-that is over three times Yahoo’s closing price of $10.63 on Monday.  After hours trading witnessed the stock rise more than 4 percent.

While Mr. Yang has been with Yahoo since the company was a mere directory of websites, many questioned his abilities to succeed as chief executive, especially upon analyzing his decisions since taking the place of Terry Semel just last year.  Now that Mr. Yang is stepping down, there are surely rumors of a new round of talks with Microsoft.

Regulators squashed the proposed advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google, and some analysts and investors have suggested that without that deal, Yahoo will be forced to either rekindle talks with Microsoft or a potential merger with AOL.  Deep Blue Interactive, your interactive marketing source in Fort Lauderdale, Florida will continue to follow this story.

Online video began as a seemingly fuzzy bright idea with relatively little structure and direction.  It seems to have found its path during the presidential election, with online video streams transforming from random assorted video clips to a one-stop destination for all things political.  Online video seems to have become a portal for users to share ideas and content on the issues that matter the most to them.

Election news, bloopers, campaign speeches, interview clips of candidates, and more began to pop up in the form of YouTube clips and other online video sources.  With online video, the propaganda and parodies have the capacity to be released much faster than the campaigns themselves-and the public could not get enough of it. 

Since its conception in 2005, YouTube in particular has paved a unique path in the developing area of online video.  There were and still are gray areas in respect to online video usage and potential, but through the 2008 presidential election, it has begun to realize its popularity and influence on the masses.  The candidates have taken notice of online video as a tool as well, setting up accounts and taking advantage of the free exposure provided by other users tweaking their content into music videos and parodies.

Similar to what MTV had previously done to attract young viewers and entice them to vote, YouTube initially positioned themselves as a medium for candidates to connect with “the youth vote”.  In reality, the candidates wound up reaching a profound amount of voters, across all demographics.  It is also being discovered that contrary to popular misconception, viewers are willing to watch longer videos if the content is relevant and newsworthy.

Video is now an integral part of the online community, and users will continue discovering new ways to harness its potential.  Contact Deep Blue Interactive-your Fort Lauderdale interactive marketing and web design solution, today for a free website analysis and consultation.