The United States continues to be the top country for spam, accounting for 15.2 percent of all global spam, an increase from 13.1 percent in the first quarter of 2010, according to a new report by Sophos.

India trails the U.S., accounting for 7.7 percent of worldwide spam, followed by Brazil (5.5%), the UK (4.6%) and South Korea (4.2%).

"It's sad to see spam relayed via compromised European computers on the rise - the UK, France, Italy and Poland have all crept up the rankings since the start of the year," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"Financially-motivated criminals are controlling compromised zombie computers to not just launch spam campaigns, but also steal identity and bank account information. It's an uphill struggle educating users about the dangers of clicking on links or attachments in spam mails, and that their computers may already be under the control of cybercriminals."

Europe has become the top spam-relaying continent, accounting for 35 percent of all spam, edging out Asia with 30.9 percent. North America and South America are responsible for 18.9 percent and 11.5 percent of spam respectively, while Africa accounts for 2.5 percent.

"Spam will continue to be a global problem for as long as it makes money for the spammers. It makes commercial sense for the criminals to continue if even a tiny proportion of recipients clicks on the links," explained Cluley.

"Too many computer users are risking a malware infection that sees their computer recruited into a spam botnet. To combat the spammers, it's not only essential for computer users to run up-to-date security /> [...]

Wed Jul 14, 2010 10:22 am

Examples of a real-dollar Return on Investment (ROI) from social media marketing programs are rare. Unfortunately for most ecommerce teams, having hundreds of thousands of fans often doesn’t translate into revenue.

For your CEO and CFO to take social media campaigns seriously, you need to be able to demonstrate a direct measurable impact that either reduces costs (say in reduced customer service heads) or increases sales. At the moment, most social campaigns are doing neither.

Both Dell and Sony have both stated that they have generated real sales from social media program, but these are definitely exceptions.

But the majority of marketers don’t even measure ROI at a simple level let alone try and attribute sales. It’s not that there aren’t any tools to do so, or that there isn’t a formula for calculating ROI; it’s just that /> [...]

Thu Mar 25, 2010 15:25 pm

Sometime this month, Googlers who work on Android probably earned the right to pop the corks on a few bottles of champagne.  New stats from AdMob (which unfortunately only run through February) indicate that Android was poised to pass the iPhone in terms of U.S. market share.

AdMob found that the iPhone had a slight edge at the end of February: 44 percent versus 42 percent.  But at the rate Android's market share has been increasing (and the iPhone's market share has been decreasing), it's likely to have taken the lead by now.

This would of course represent a major victory for Google.  It'd raise big questions about how much the scales will continue to tip, too - how low will the iPhone's U.S. market share go before things stabilize?

The iPhone is still pretty dominant on a worldwide basis, though.  AdMob determined that its market share in that respect is 50 percent, while Android's is 24 percent.  So while Android's done well globally - it was at just 16 percent a year ago - Google has some work ahead of it overseas.

Maybe that just means Googlers can look forward to having a second day of champagne and celebrations at some point in the future.

Update: Late Friday, Google announced that it closed the On2 Technologies acquisition, valued at about $124.6 million, after On2's shareholders voted to approve the transaction.

"We're excited to welcome the On2 team to Google and to continue to enhance the video experience for users on the web," said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management at Google. "Through rapid innovation in browsers and web standards, the Internet is becoming the leading platform for development. We believe On2's engineering talent and technology will be an incredible asset for us as we work to improve this platform."

Original Article: Google has announced that it is acquiring video compression technology developer On2 in a deal valued at about $106.5 million. Specifically, each outstanding share of On2 common stock will be converted into $0.60 worth of Google class A common stock in a stock-for-stock transaction.

"Today video is an essential part of the web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform," says Sundar Pichai, Vice President, Product Management, Google. "We are committed to innovation in video quality on the web, and we believe that On2’s team and technology will help us further that goal."

"We’re thrilled that On2 is joining one of the world’s most innovative companies," says Matt Frost, interim CEO of On2. "After intensive review of On2 products, Google confirmed our long-held beliefs as to the quality of our video technologies. This transaction is a testament to the hard work of every On2 employee and the strongest possible endorsement of our products and peop/> [...]

Mon Feb 22, 2010 06:15 am