Search Could Be Twitter's Path to the Big Bucks

First tweet spells 'I'm feeling lucky' in binary

(NEWSER) - Google’s Twitter feed has attracted a staggering number of readers in the two days since it launched, proving that the micro-blogging service is already a fixture of internet culture, cNet reports. Google’s feed already has 27,176 followers—not as popular as Barack Obama, whose Twitter has 333,381 readers, but head and shoulders above Microsoft’s Live Search and Yahoo, which have 1,536 and 4,876 followers, respectively. More»

Ooyala might figure out the riddle of monetization: Forbes

(NEWSER) - There's a startup company you've probably never heard of, but chances are you've seen its work, writes Michael Humphrey in Forbes . It's called Ooyala, and it powers an enormous number of videos across the web. ESPN highlights, Miramax movies, videos that appear on the sites of Rolling Stone, TV Guide, and many more are all managed by Ooyala. The company racks up 200 million video views a month, and its future is all about making sense of the avalanche of data it receives about viewers and turning clicks into dollars. More»

Do you know when you're being sold something?

(NEWSER) - You can tell when you’re watching a commercial, right? Not at all, writes NE Marsden , and that’s a huge problem. A new FTC measure seeks to expose the practice of paid consideration—“stealth advertising” is a better phrase—online by requiring bloggers and marketers to disclose remuneration, but that hasn’t worked too well on TV. You didn’t know producers have to disclose product placement on TV? Exactly. More»

Twitterverse split on ethics of Sponsored Tweets

(NEWSER) - A new company is brokering deals between businesses and Twitterers who want to make a few extra bucks plugging products, Time reports. The founder of the website Sponsored Tweets says 7,000 enterprising Twitterers have signed up for the service in its first month. Twitterers get paid based on a range of considerations, including their number of followers. Companies look at the database of participants and make an offer. More»

(NEWSER) - If you think blogs are useless, think again: Scientists have developed a “hedonometer,” or happiness gauge, that analyzes personal online statements to pinpoint the overall contentment of the US population on a given day, the Discovery Channel reports. The program looks at sentences beginning with “I feel” and then grades the statement based on what follows. “Triumphant” gets an 8.87; “hostage” scores a 2.20. More»