Patricio Robles

Report: click fraud continues its march

Click fraud has always been an issue for advertisers using paid search, but for many, it has been considered a cost of doing business.

So long as campaigns are profitable, worrying about click fraud hasn't always seemed like a priority.

by Patricio Robles 28 January 2009 16:09pm 1 comment

Is AOL looking to sell Bebo?

Less than a year ago, AOL acquired Bebo for $850m in cash in what is today still one of only a handful of major Web 2.0 acquisitions.

Our resident skeptic, Drama 2.0, criticized the deal and called the suggestion that AOL may have overpaid for the popular social network the "understatement of the year".

by Patricio Robles 28 January 2009 09:24am 0 comments

Case study: Silicon Alley Insider promoting the wrong things to the wrong people

My RSS reader has subscriptions to feeds for several dozen technology blogs that I've come to rely on because they've provided news and information that I find useful and valuable.

I have but one simple expectation: relevance.

by Patricio Robles 27 January 2009 18:05pm 0 comments

Best Buy 'remixes' it up with developer API

Facing perhaps the toughest economy for retailers in decades, Best Buy is turning to a new group that it thinks can help it boost sales: developers.

The consumer electronics retailer, which operates in the United States and Puerto Rico, may have gotten rid of its biggest competitor after Circuit City was forced to shut its doors but that doesn't mean that Best Buy can relax.

by Patricio Robles 28 January 2009 08:30am 1 comment

Does the internet need an open video format?

Mozilla, the non-profit foundation behind the popular Firefox browser, is putting its weight behind the development of an open, royalty-free video codec for the internet.

While popular video formats such as MPEG4 are quite robust, most are proprietary, covered by patents and require some sort of licensing on the part of software vendors.

by Patricio Robles 27 January 2009 15:52pm 0 comments

Microsoft IE8 release candidate now available

As Microsoft pushes forward on the path towards Windows 7, the successor OS to a very disappointing Windows Vista, the Redmond-based software company has made an Internet Explorer 8 release candidate available for download.

IE8 will come bundled with Windows 7 and represents Microsoft's effort to maintain IE's always-vulnerable but still-dominant hold on the browser market.

by Patricio Robles 27 January 2009 09:22am 1 comment

Best of both worlds? The age of the hybrid content model

Last week, we reported on Encyclopaedia Britannica's pending changes to Britannica.com that would enable users to contribute content to the Britannica's online entries.

The move was clearly designed to take a page out of the book of the user-generated online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which has come to dominate the online market.

by Patricio Robles 26 January 2009 18:02pm 1 comment

Is now a good time to buy a domain on the secondary market?

It's an experience many of us share: you think you've come up with the ideal domain name only to find that the domain name is already registered and the owner is only willing to sell it for a small fortune.

Savvy investors and speculators have made millions buying and selling domain names over the years.

by Patricio Robles 26 January 2009 11:39am 0 comments

Report: Twitter raising more money at $250m valuation

Twitter, the popular microblogging service that has become a favorite social media marketing tool, has signed a term sheet to raise more venture capital money at a $250m valuation. That's according to a report published this weekend by TechCrunch.

Thus far, Twitter has raised approximately $20 million in funding. The dollar amount of the latest round is not yet known.

by Patricio Robles 26 January 2009 09:24am 0 comments