Thought Beans Blog

Second life synonymous with the Virtual world is now playing host to Terror in the virtual world as well. Second life liberation army has been on an attacking spree in the second life. It has attacked the Nissan, reebok & others in the second life recently. This has posed new dangers to the countries around the globe. Terrorists can use Second life to practice the attacks on establishments which was not possible earlier. The Govts will now have to move at a faster rate of innovation to prevent the attacks. Linden labs Second life launched in 2003 was at a very low profile till sony, sun micro & others started taking islands in the second life.

After the purchase of Youtube for billions of dollars, Google had to monetize the revenue from Youtube. The question on everybody’s mind was how would goole use it? The solution: Universal Search. Google did which no one would have imagined would happen. Google combined the results of youtube, images, booksearch & what not into uinversal search. Now search for any term, the possibility is you can run into video ads from you tube. This has resulted in a new way of search. Allowing google to include all its products into the results. With the purchase of feedburner, google has unlimited data on RSS feeds. With RSS feed reader & feedburner feedcreator google has more than it can ask for. Even the Premium services of feedburner has been made into free products now. Expect Google’s further integration of prodcuts in to search as it goes on a buying spree.

The Free web analytics war is going to heaten up with the Microsoft web analytics code named Gatineau. The screenshots of the beta have already slipped on to the web. Beta of Gatineau will be thrown open by MS as early as summer. This will be a good competitor for Google web analytics. This is one of the areas which has huge potential to get the data of the users. To be successful, MS will have to do more than G analytics. This is one area which no one had expected MS to move in. With this, MS will be making a huge step ahead. Beta testing will be able to collect data about the gender & age.

The first CNN - Youtube presidential debate is a radical change in the way we elect presidents. This is the first time in a TV show, questions were asked without any moderation from the anchor. More than 3000 questions were submitted to CNN/Youtube. Finally around 40 questions were selected & posed for the democratic candidates. This is the age internet & hence blogs, forums, videos play an important role in elections. The questions ranged from a father who has lost his son in Iraq war, to gay marriage, minimum wage & education. This is the kind of discussion we need in a country like India. The present presidential election in India is one of the murkiest one. No one had heard of Pratiba Patil earlier. Now she is Madame President. This is the reson why India is losing credibility at the International Diplomacy.

Facebook , the new darling of Silicon valley, has made its first acuqistion, Parakey. This was founded by the cofounders of Mozilla Firefox. The Rumors about Facebook are running high. Mark turned down the offer from Yahoo last year. Will Mark sell the venture or will he take it public. There is also question the about the origins of facebook. Facebook is attracting lot of media coverage since it opened for development. Facebook becuase of its market place feature is allowing it tap the market easily. Will it be the next Google or Microsoft?