At the moment no one knows the answers to these questions but I personally think this is quite a good purchase, as long as they can integrate this into the rest of the product range.

So let’s look at why they’ve done it:
Now they have access to 700 million users; obtained a great technology; and are now the market leader in VoIP.

In one foul swoop they have jumped ahead of Apple and Google in consumer internet telephony and video conferencing, plus kept it out of the hands of Facebook. The interesting thing is that Skype is the only truly platform agnostic offering, in that it runs all major desktop systems as well as nearly all mobile phones, which is something Apple and Google can’t claim yet.

Have they paid too much?
It is hard to say if they have paid too much or not, my feeling is yes but if it helps them gain ground in the consumer market, which is something they are striving for (this is why Apple has done so well), then it could be money well spent. The issue Microsoft had was that they were bidding against other companies with pretty deep pockets and they probably needed/wanted Skype more than the others.

Will Microsoft ruin Skype??
I don’t think they will ruin Skype, they’ve paid too much to allow it to wither and die. I think they will wait for a while, take stock of their acquisition and look for ways to integrate it into their other products. XBOX live is ripe for integration as is the Microsoft Office platform, there is also the possibility of aligning it with - or replacing - Live Messenger. (That said I wouldn’t want to be responsible for integrating those platforms together.)

Overall I think this is a good move for Microsoft and quite a brave one, time will tell to see if it is a wise one.

The source which revealed to The Wall Street Journal said Twitter’s revenue of $45million last year, and valued Twitter between $8 and $10-billion, but added that the talks have “gone nowhere”.

The WSJ pointed out that a $10billion evaluation for Twitter is 200-times more than its last year’s revenue. Not only that but it is 100-times more than its estimated revenue of $100million-$110million for this year.

According to IT Portal, Twitter is only used by 12-percent of internet users so $10-billion would seem an extremely high as an evaluation.

Twitter’s management told people in the company that the company was not for sale.

-Via IT Portal

Uptake of IPv6 is low, despite predictions that IPv4 numbers will become used up in as little as two years. A recent survey by the Internet Society found that many within a small sample of internet industry heavy hitters reckoned IPv6 uptake was being driven more by fashion than a strong business case.

A team of Google engineers has worked on an IPv6 transition project on a part-time basis for about 18 months. The work means that the majority of the search engine giant’s applications and services have supported IPv6 since January. Google Maps IPv6 support was added last month.

“We can provide all Google services over IPv6,” Google network engineer Lorenzo Colitti said during a panel discussion at a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) last week.

Google engineers took IPv6 from the development of network architecture blueprints and software engineering work, through a trial phase, until Google made IPv6-based services publicly available. The project used 20 per cent of a team of Google engineers’ time between July 2007 until its completion in January 2009.

Putting together a pilot IPv6 network “was not expensive” nor particularly difficult, according to Colitti, who advised organisations to roll out next-generation IPv6 networks in stages. Colitti said that moving to IPv6 reduces the infrastructure and support costs associated with piece-meal upgrades to existing IPv4 systems, such as the addition of additional layers of Network Address Translator kit. NAT equipment allows multiple internet-connected devices to present the same IP address.

Chicken and Egg

Google recently hosted a conference for IPv6 implementers, shortly after the ad aggregator published a manifesto on why IPv6 was a significant technology.

By expanding the number of IP addresses – enough for three billion addresses for every person on the planet – IPv6 will clear the way for the next generation of VoIP, video conferencing, mobile applications, “smart” appliances (Internet-enabled heating systems, cars, refrigerators, and other devices) and other novel applications.In a report prepared for the National Institute of Standards & Technology in 2005, RTI International estimated annual benefits in excess of $10 billion.

Unfortunately, IPv6 presents a classic chicken-and-egg problem. The benefits of any one network operator, device vendor, application and content provider, or Internet user adopting IPv6 are limited if there is not a critical mass of other adopters. As a result, adoption lags.

Despite this enthusiasm (from Google at least) only a minority of organisations, admittedly very significant players including the US federal government, engineering services firm Bechtel, UK academic network JANET and err… The Pirate Bay, have embraced the next-generation Internet protocol.

Original Article Source: The Register

Today you can go online, find a nice template, pay pennies, plug in some content and by the end of the day you have a great new website that you can show off to your friends and colleagues. You can have flashy animations, interactive blogs and integrated email web forms, all without needing an ounce of knowledge about web design.

“So what’s the problem?” I hear you say….

Well, there is a world of difference between developing a website and developing a successful website, all depending on the measure of success. If you want to write a short story, show it to your family and friends and get a pat on the back then you’re probably going to succeed. If, however, you want to win the Booker Prize and sell a million copies, well then you’re going to need some help and the process is going to be a lot more involved.

There are five key elements to building a successful website:

1. Clearly plan and define your objectives – What constitutes success
2. Plan and produce your content – This will define what people do when they visit the site and help it get found in the first place
3. Design your site – everyone knows this bit!
4. Launch your site, measure and reiterate – learn from your visitors and adapt ths site accordingly
5. Market your site – Give it a bit of PR, also called off-page SEO (search engine optimisation)

In this first article I’m going to focus on developing the site content because in my experience this is the least understood and most important process in website development.

This is really a guide to create effective content for your website, maximising your website ranking in Google, improving accessibility and making the initial development of your site more efficient.

Page Title

This appears on the blue bar at the top of your browser window and should bear relevance to both the website and the page the visitor is on. When someone searches Google, this will be the link which takes the visitor to your webpage. The title of the BBC News page for example is: BBC NEWS | News Front Page

Page (META) Description

The page description is not visible on the webpage but it provides search engines such as Google with a brief description of the content on the page. This description will appear under the link in the Google search results and should only be 120 characters long. Search Google for ‘news’ and you will see the BBC News page with the following description:  Visit BBC News for up-to-the-minute news, breaking news, video, audio and feature stories. BBC News provides trusted World and UK news as …

Page (META) Keywords & Phrases

These are no longer used by Google but it is very important to put yourself in the mind of you customers or target audience and think about which words they might search for to find this page of your website. Note down these keywords as they will be key to optimising your website later.

Content Heading 1

Each page needs a big bold primary heading which instantly and accurately sets the expectation to the visitor about what they can expect to find on this page. This may be the page title or may be part of the page description but either way it should be relevant to the page content and may contain one of your primary keywords.

Content Heading 2

If you have multiple paragraphs of text on the page you may want sub headings (or secondary headings) to break up the content and help signpost the visitor to the right information. Google likes these almost as much as the primary heading and are very useful for visually impaired visitors who might be using screen-readers to surf the site.

Content Paragraph Intro

The introduction paragraph needs to be short, sweet and clearly visible to the visitor, this is arguably the first time you really engage with your audience so make the most of it.

Content Paragraph Normal

Most of the informational content on your page will be text based and will fall under this category – a normal paragraph of text. Google loves this and if you follow these tips you will almost certainly rank well in Google:

1. Keep it clear and concise
2. Remove unnecessary words while maintaining the ‘personality of your site’
3. Keep on topic – use your key words and keep the content relevant to the title and description
4. Break up the content – use sub headings to structure the paragraphs into appropriate segments
5. Keep it simple, reference diagrams for complicated concepts

Content Image

Well used images, photos, graphics or diagrams are great for visitors, they attract the eye and can be the difference between a visitor staying on the page or bouncing away as fast as possible. They must be used wisely however as search engines and screen-readers cannot see images – you must label them carefully to help Google understand what they show.

1. Keep file sizes to a minimum so they appear instantly and don’t keep the visitor waiting
2. Make the name of the image file relevant to the image itself
3. ALWAYS put a brief description of the image in the ALT tags
4. Use the same text you put into the ALT tags into the TITLE tags

Content Image (Alternative Text) Title

Alt tags are critical for Search engines and Screen readers, they are the text based interpretation of the image and the only reference Google will have to what the image portrays. Think of these as Image ‘Labels’ and make sure you label every image you acquire for your content.

Conclusion

If you adhere to these principals for every single page then Google will take great pleasure in indexing your site, your page rank will be better off and people will start finding your site. This is the first step and it’s now down to the appeal of the content and design to take your visitors on a journey that will meet those success factors you identified right at the start.

It may sound like a lot of work and I’m not going to lie to you, it is and unfortunately the only person who can put all this content together is you! Having said this, by following these guidelines from the outset, you can save days of your own time later, you will save money on design (IF YOU DO THIS FIRST), your site will already be optimised and you should have a steady flow of visitors, allowing you to test and measure how well your content is received.