The year of WEB: 2011

We've been living in the age of social media for a long time, but 2011 was the year that all the information we share online began to accrete into something greater than the sum of its parts. It is creating a layer of intelligence that anyone can mine in Web searches and that content creators can use to hone their services.

This is happening more readily because sharing our opinions and photos and status updates online isn't just a stand-alone application anymore—it's now an activity embedded into other things. If you're reading an article online and want to recommend it, you don't have to click over to Facebook to tell your friends you liked it; now that more and more sites are connecting themselves to Facebook's "Open Graph," you can register your approval on Facebook directly from the article's page. This means that your friends can be guided to it when they show up at the same site. Google launched something similar this year, so that you might see certain search results higher if they've been recommended by friends. That was just part of Google's efforts to improve its grasp on social networking this year. After failing last year to gain traction with a Twitter-like network called Buzz, the search giant rolled out Google+, a service that embeds information sharing into many of Google's services.

             At the same time, the data we generate with our sharing continues to make it easier for advertisers to target product pitches more directly. In some cases, this is leading to new business models, in which intelligence gleaned from social-media chatter is gathered and brokered by companies such as Bluefin Labs. It also is turbocharging Facebook's existing ad model, setting the company up for the largest Web IPO of 2012. 

The stock market was receptive enough to Web companies in 2011 that several had IPOs, including Zynga, Groupon, Pandora, Zillow, LinkedIn, and Renren, a Chinese version of Facebook. However, they quickly ran into skepticism about the sustainability of their growth rates, keeping their stock prices in check.
On the political front, 2011 brought intriguing and important developments as well. We saw the powerful ways social media can amplify dissent and free expression. That challenges authoritarian regimes—and anyone with secrets they'd rather keep. Because of government pressure, several payment providers stopped facilitating donations to WikiLeaks, which made for a rocky year for the organization.

7 Best ways to save the value of Brands @ Internet

Even Brands are not spared @ Internet

CyberSquatters are siphoning away increasing numbers of users from the Web sites of businesses large and small. Using variations on trademarked names, cybersquatters may lure prospective customers to pornographic Web sites, malware sites, sites hawking counterfeit goods, or pay-per-click advertising sites, some of which lead viewers to competitors' products and services.

They're doing so right under the noses of trademark holders, but many businesses remain blissfully ignorant of what's going on -- or how it can affect their business. In addition to lost revenue from customers who never reach a company's true Web site, businesses may find that cybersquatters have irrevocably damaged their brand's reputation.

While cybersquatters have been around almost as long as the Web itself, the problem is getting worse.

What should you do to protect your business?

        Establish a policy to deal with the problem

Take the time to create a detailed policy, then follow up with surveillance and policing.

Monitor new domain registrations

IHG, based in Denham, England, uses a monitoring service that alerts the company when potentially infringing domain names are registered. Those services aren't cheap -- basic monitoring services from Cyveillance Inc., for example, run $5,000 to $10,000 per year. But at least you can identify unauthorized registrations and know what's registered and who's registering it.

Incomplete or fictitious registration information is a tip-off that the entity is not aboveboard. Organizations that do their own monitoring often use Google to see if common misspellings and other variations on a trademarked domain name have been registered. The Domain tools Web site allows "who is" lookups of trademarked name variations to see they've been registered as domain names. It also offers other monitoring and lookup services.

When checking for misspellings of your brand, remember that not all keyboards are in QWERTY format, Va.-based Cyveillance. Stay on top of what devices are selling well and what logical thumb mistakes are being made on those devices.

Build a portfolio of defensive domain-name registrations

This includes common misspellings or other typographic errors users might enter when typing your brand names. Registering a domain name can cost as little as $6 per year.

Check your trademarks

Make sure your trademark portfolio is up to date in all parts of the world, A trademark application can go a long way in a domain-name dispute.

Choose your battles

"You can't go after every cybersquatter out there. But you can go after those causing the most damage or creating the most problems for you ,which means prioritizing domain-name abuse cases. Lego, for example, looks at how much traffic the offending site receives, as well as the domain name and content on the site, before making a decision.

Pursue violators

Depending on the circumstances, victims may be able to sue under the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act or the Lanham (Trademark)Act. If content infringes on copyright, it may be possible to have the site taken down immediately -- sometimes the same day -- under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Lawsuits are expensive but can work. Picking a few high-profile cases can act as a deterrent. You create a reputation that you aggressively pursue [cybersquatter] domain-name registrants.

But the least expensive approach is to file a complaint with a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) dispute-resolution provider such as the World Intellectual Property Organization or the National Arbitration Forum. The complainant must successfully argue that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to the brand name , and that the owner has no rights to or legitimate interests in that name and is using it in bad faith.

The process takes about two months from complaint to decision. If the complainant wins and the owner does not file an appeal, the site must be taken down within 10 days of the decision.

Get involved

Join the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC), which represents the interests of trademark and copyright owners to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that coordinates the Domain Name System on the Internet.

"Many decisions made by ICANN have a critical impact on the interests of intellectual property owners who seek to protect their rights online. The Intellectual Property Constituency is a key channel for input into those decisions.

Chrome VS Firefox: Guess who won this year

Google’s Chrome Web browser has leapfrogged Firefox to claim the number two slot in the browser battle, according to Web analytics firm StatCounter.

Chrome held 25.69 percent of the worldwide market in November 2011 compared with Firefox's 25.23 percent. Internet Explorer remains the top browser globally with a 40.63 percent share of the market.

Of the top five browsers, only Chrome is seeing rapid growth -- in November 2009, it held just under 5 percent of the market. Firefox and Internet Explorer have been slowly losing market share the past two years, while Safari and Opera have been more or less flat.

Chrome has often been cited for its superior speed and stability over other browsers. Each Chrome tab is assigned its own process, so one buggy site won't crash the whole browser. Recent versions of Firefox, by comparison, have seemed a bit slow and bloated. Word of mouth about Chrome seems to have slowly accelerated over the past few years, according to StatCounter data.

NetMarketShare, another Web analytics firm, shows Chrome still in third place, but on a similar trajectory to overtake Firefox soon.

In the United States alone, StatCounter finds Chrome still in third place, but also not by much.

Technically, it's still Microsoft's world on the Web, but not quite like it was in the days when Internet Explorer had more than 90 percent of the browser market. Perhaps by the time Windows XP is no longer a dominant operating system, Chrome may have a shot at the browser crown.