LinkedIn to let users post photos

Giving into user demand, the networking site LinkedIn will soon start letting its users post photos with their personal profiles.

LinkedIn has long resisted photos, seeing itself as a site for professional networking and job-seeking and desiring to set itself apart from social-oriented hangouts like News Corp.’s MySpace and Facebook. In addition, LinkedIn didn’t want to open potential employers to discrimination complaints.

But Adam Nash, LinkedIn’s senior director of products, said photos remain one of the most requested features, and the site will start allowing them this Friday — with limits.

Users will be able to post only one photograph, and a head shot is highly recommended. Nash said the feature isn’t meant for posting photos from afterwork gatherings but for helping users recognize former colleagues and classmates. Although party shots are discouraged, there are no current plans to ban them.

LinkedIn also will allow a user to turn off photos completely when viewing other profiles — useful for human resources employees searching the site for potential recruits but fearful that a photo might compromise anti-discrimination policies.

Users also can control who can see their photos — their closest connections, everyone or in between — and they won’t be pressured to post one. Photo-less profiles won’t have an empty box seen at many other sites to remind visitors that a photo is missing.

“We did have to put some significant thought into how to introduce photos in a professional context, while still accommodating needs,” Nash said.

MySpace Mobile Web launches

MySpace has launched a beta of MySpace Mobile Web which allows users to access the site for free on their mobile phones.

The Mobile Web site will be available this week with a wider rollout planned in the coming months to other Fox Interactive Media sites.

“Accessing the internet from a mobile phone will soon be as common as text messaging and voice calling,” said John Smelzer, senior vice president and general manager of mobile at Fox Interactive Media.

“It is our goal to deliver these free ad-supported experiences as additional options for our users on top of our incredibly popular premium mobile services. “

The MySpace Mobile Web beta marks the first time that Fox has given marketers the opportunity to reach internet users on mobile devices.

Fox has promised that the sites will offer a considerable amount of free content, tools and services that were previously available only to paid subscribers.

“MySpace Mobile Web significantly lowers the barrier of entry for all MySpace users to access their profiles on-the-go,” said Amit Kapur, vice president of business development at MySpace.

Fox has partnered with mobile advertising network Millennial Media to sell and serve mobile-based ads, which includes custom sponsorship packages within MySpace and more traditional display-based ads with other Fox properties, such as IGN, FOXSports.com and RottenTomatoes.c om.

The new service will allow users to send and receive MySpace messages and friend requests, comment on pictures and profiles, post bulletins, update blogs, find and search for friends and view or change ‘mood’ status.

MySpace rival Facebook recently launched a version of its site specifically designed for use on Apple’s iPhone, as well as announcing plans for targeted adverts on the site.

Facebook’s move could side-step attempts by some companies to prevent employees accessing social networking sites after fears that it wastes company time.

Viralg selling anti-piracy technology on eBay

Imagine the scenario - you’re the head of a multi-million dollar label, someone has convinced you that your business is losing money due to file-sharing. What do you do? Call in the Ghostbusters? Or do what lots of companies do and call in the likes of MediaDefender to help them. As no anti-piracy system can do anything other than make a very small impact on file-sharing, it’s a far from satisfactory solution.

Early in 2005, established anti-piracy company Viralg of Finland burst onto the P2P scene with a staggering claim: With their technology it was possible to end 99% of all file-sharing.

In 2004, Viralg listed Electronic Arts, Vivendi, Microsoft Game Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, Atari, Nintendo, Codemasters and THQ as just some of their customers. They were among the nominees for the ICT Prize 2005 and the winner of the Venture Cup business plan competition.

The portfolio certainly made them appear impressive at the time, so when an eBay auction caught the eye today offering to sell Viralg’s technology for a cool $1,000,000, TorrentFreak became a little curious.

So what’s on offer? Looks like Viralg’s ‘intellectual property’ in the form of some patent applications:

Viralg supplies technology aimed at preventing sharing of illegal content such as music, movies, GPS maps, games and software from being shared over P2P networks such as Gnutella. Viralg technology is in widespread use by record companies in Finland (90% of customers) and in the other Scandinavian countries. Technology has generated turnover of over 500.000 US dollars. The patent applications for sale cover the necessary key technology for the only possible effective protection against illegal P2P sharing. Depending on the source illegal P2P causes damages of 4 to 12 billion US dollars to media companies per year.

So should likely buyers (unhappy MediaDefender customers perhaps?) invest in this technology?

Viralg claimed to be able to create a corrupted file but with a working hash, giving it the appearance of a genuine file. As people downloaded they got a selection of genuine and corrupt parts sent to them rendering the final file useless. Although partially effective on the FastTrack network (KaZaA [R.I.P] )years ago, Viralg’s offer of 40 hours of training to use the system still doesn’t cut it in today’s BitTorrent dominated file-sharing world.

Before Prince gets any fancy ideas about buying this for the Web Sheriff to use against The Pirate Bay, this outdated system is pretty useless against BitTorrent, which renders its ‘Patented Virtual Algorithm’, well - useless.

TorrentFreak spoke to Dr. Ir. Johan Pouwelse, researcher on P2P technology at Delft University of Technology, who explained why: “Bittorrent uses a separate hash for every 1-4 MByte. This means you can still exploit the weakness in the protocol by sending bad data. However, clients are now generally so smart that they only accept maximum 1 fake 1-4MB block from an IP address.”

Of course to corrupt lots of files, you need lots of presence on file-sharing networks (servers, accounts, the whole MediaDefender-style setup) so the $1m tag is just the tip of an enormous iceberg.

Maybe some of the sales statistics will tempt prospective buyers? The system has been running since 2003, and in that time it generated a turnover of $500,000. Potential buyers are likely to be more interested in the bottom line, especially now that the bottom has fallen out of the FastTrack network.

Anyone with a bulging bank balance needing a guarantee of being able to corrupt files on the FastTrack network (and is unaware that MediaDefender’s tools are available for free) should hurry over to the eBay auction right now, there’s not long left to go - for the auction or Viralg.

Bill Gates leads Forbes rich list

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been ranked as the wealthiest person in America for the 14th year in a row.

Forbes magazine put Gates’ fortune at $59bn, with investment guru Warren Buffet in second place with a net worth of $52bn.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and software tycoon Larry Ellison remained at third and fourth place on Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans.

It took a net worth of at least $1.3bn to earn a spot in the rankings.

Google founders fifth

For the first time since 1989 there were no members of Walton family, which established Wal-Mart Stores, in the top 10.

They were displaced by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who came in joint fifth place, with fortunes of $18.5bn apiece.

Investor Kirk Kerkorian was the biggest gainer on the list, his fortune rising by more than $9bn in the past year to $18bn, putting him in seventh place.

“Wall Street really led the charge this year,” said Matthew Miller, editor of the Forbes list. “God only knows if they’ll be on it next year. It really just depends on what the market does.”

The collective net worth of the 400 billionaires totalled $1.54 trillion - more than Canada’s GDP.

Microsoft reportedly in talks to invest in Facebook

Microsoft Corp is in talks to buy up to 5 percent of Facebook in a deal that could value the fast-growing online social network company at $10 billion or more, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The move could give maturing Microsoft more access to young users and let Facebook get closer to a major software maker at a time when its growth is increasingly tied to a proliferation of small applications from independent developers on its site.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said the world’s largest software company sought to buy a stake of up to 5 percent in Facebook for $300 million to $500 million.

Facebook, led by its 23-year-old founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, may insist on a valuation as high as $15 billion and is considering raising up to $500 million in cash to expand its operations, according to the Journal.

Such a deal could help Microsoft better compete against Web search leader Google Inc for a growing base of online advertising and put one of the Internet’s hottest names in Microsoft’s camp.

Facebook, which already has an advertising deal with Microsoft, would benefit from closer ties with developers as it seeks to turn its site into a full-fledged Web platform where users can play games, interact and read news about each other, said Forrester analyst Charlene Li.

“If you are building a business around building a platform there is one company that has done it better than anybody else — and that is Microsoft,” she said. “People have been just assuming that Google would be the best partner and that is not necessarily the case.”

Google has also expressed an interest in investing in Facebook, the Journal report said.

“It would probably be pretty good for Microsoft since it has not had the best success in creating really hip, young-people-grabbing stuff on the Web,” said Kim Caughey, a senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group, which oversees more than $1 billion, including Microsoft shares, for clients.

Representatives for Microsoft and Facebook declined to comment.

Zuckerberg has repeatedly said his company wants to remain independent and is seen as preparing to float itself on the stock market eventually.

Facebook has grown to 39 million members, up nearly 63 percent from 24 million in late May, and is quickly gaining ground on larger rival MySpace, which was taken over by News Corp in 2005 for what is now seen as a bargain price of $580 million. MySpace has more than 200 million users.

Facebook’s explosion popularity has also drawn increased scrutiny, including a 50-state investigation into the company by attorneys general concerned about Web sexual predators.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on Monday his office had subpoenaed Facebook and accused it of not keeping young users safe. Facebook said it was preparing a statement about the issue.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft already has an exclusive agreement until 2011 to broker display advertisements for Facebook. The Journal said Microsoft and Facebook are discussing expanding that agreement beyond the United States.

After relinquishing an early advantage in the lucrative paid search market to Google and Yahoo Inc, Microsoft is trying to catch up by clinching deals to broker display advertising to some of the leading names in “Web 2.0.”

Yahoo and Google are also maneuvering. Earlier this year, for instance, News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch said he had discussed swapping MySpace for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo.

Web 2.0 is a catch-phrase for a new generation of Internet services that run on interactive software and typically rely on content generated by users to attract more visitors. Microsoft also has an agreement with popular news site Digg.com.

Microsoft shares rose 1.5 percent to $29.08 on Nasdaq.