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Yahoo! launches further integration with Facebook

Yahoo! is set to launch new features integrating Yahoo .com and Yahoo! Mail further with Facebook , encouraging users to post actions taken on Yahoo! sites and associated services - such as Flickr - onto their Facebook wall. The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo! will also upgrade its Yahoo! Profiles service to include tabs for various social networks. Under the new name Yahoo! Pulse, users will be able to switch between these networks and access updates from their Yahoo! or Facebook profiles. These features are strengthening the extended partnership between Yahoo! and Facebook , launched last December, as Yahoo! accelerates its goal of becoming a more social site to hold the attention of its visitors. Although Yahoo! sites currently receive hundreds of millions of visitors each month, many of these do not hang around after viewing news stories or checking their email - instead heading over to sites such as Facebook to spend more time networking with friends . In a statement, Yahoo! explained that its partnership with Facebook was an effort “to give people one simple, trusted place to share information and connect. We think this offers great benefit to people across the Web, and it’s key to helping Yahoo! extend our reach and increase engagement.” Yahoo! is not the only side benefiting from the deal, however, as these new features are also helping Facebook in its campaign to encourage more sites to link to its services, achieving founder Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a social web , extending user profiles across more major hubs and sites. Director of the Facebook Developer Network, Ethan Beard, said: “By integrating with Facebook on a global scale, Yahoo! is building upon an already valuable brand to give people easy ways to share the content they enjoy on Yahoo! with their friends on Facebook.” Digg | delicious | Reddit | Google | Twitter | Sphinn | StumbleUpon | YahooBuzz | Facebook | Mixx | Contact bigmouthmedia

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Yahoo! launches further integration with Facebook

across-the-web

Google Squared bounds ahead on its one-year anniversary

Launched 12 May 2009, Google Squared, currently still in beta , has had several of its features injected into the primary Google search, but has also received a few additional upgrades of its own from the techies at the Mountain View wonderland. Originally launched as an advanced fact-finding arm to the traditional Google search, Squared now brings up simple facts, such as significant dates in history, birthdates of important people or ‘Who’s the prime minister of Canada?’ (A: Stephen Harper) “Three months ago we began using Squared technology to highlight answers for these types of searches in snippets,” wrote technical lead John Provine in an official Google blog posting. “Today we’re expanding that effort so that when you’re looking for this kind of simple fact in search, we give you more accurate answers right at the top of your results, sourced from across the web.” This would mean, then, that users searching for simpler queries would be more satisfied with first-page results, possibly doing away with the need to click through to further web pages. Whilst not fully functional on its Google .co.uk portal , the blog posting said that a sources list would be available, where users could also verify a fact’s validity across a number of channels. A second feature added to the main Google search is a “Something Different” option, where a search can be opened up to include things similar to that previously searched.

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Google Squared bounds ahead on its one-year anniversary

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BBC improves search engine visibility

The BBC has changed the way it titles its stories in a bid to greater appease the search engines that bring much of its traffic to its pages. It is among a host of news agencies who now practise search engine optimisation in order to increase web presence. News editor Steve Herrmann says the decision is based on the vast number of visitors the site gets from the likes of search engines Google and Bing, stating that around 29% of the UK traffic comes through search engines

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BBC improves search engine visibility

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Phishing attack nabs 10,000 Hotmail passwords

Hotmail users have been advised to change their passwords as quickly as possible following a phishing attack that saw thousands of genuine email address and their log in details being published across the web. The attack was discovered on Monday, but the passwords had already been posted over the weekend - meaning that, although the original posts have been taken down, duplicate copies could already be stored on individuals’ computers or winding their way across other forums and websites

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Phishing attack nabs 10,000 Hotmail passwords

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Amazon payment services go mobile

Mobile payment services received a boost yesterday as retail giant Amazon launched Amazon Mobile Payment, a service which will put it in direct competition with PayPal, iTunes and Google Checkout. The new Amazon Mobile Payments System will mean that mobile merchants and developers will be able to incorporate Amazon’s one click checkout technology to easily accept payments through smartphones and mobile devices. One of the first companies to jump on board this new technology is Handmark, a mobile content company that provides ringtones, video games for smartphones and other mobile downloads

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Amazon payment services go mobile