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The recently-acquired FeedBurner might become free for all the users because the PRO version is already offering an attractive promotion for the interested consumers. As blogger Ionut Alex Chitu noticed, FeedBuner PRO can be used for free for a period up to 15 days but you still have to pay approximately $5 per month after the trial period ends. However, this is an interesting step because it's not the first time when Google acquires a company and before making them 100 percent free, it offers a short trial to attract consumers. Ionut Alex Chitu offered as examples Google Earth, Picasa and SketchUp, the 3D modelling tool that was bought by Google on March 14, 2006.
"By default, FeedBurner already enabled the reach metrics for everyone. "Reach is the total number of people who have taken action — viewed or clicked — on the content in your feed. Subscribers is a measure of how many people are subscribed to your feed. At any given time, you can expect that a certain percentage of this subscriber base is actively engaging with your content and this "Reach" measurement provides this additional insight," the blogger mentioned.
In addition, FeedBurner MyBrand, a solution powered by FeedBurner and that allows publishers to distribute their own feeds straight from their domains, is available for free without any fee. It seems like before the Google acquisition, the product was valued at $3-$14 per month as the same blogger mentions.
"With MyBrand, publishers can continue to take advantage of all of FeedBurner’s services, but provide a transparent experience by running everything through their domain (e.g. feeds.yoursitenamehere.com) instead of ours," the parent company Google says.
Now, if Google has this interesting technique to buy major companies and make their solutions available for free, let's hope that the Mountain View giant is interested in acquiring the famous Windows operating system and release it with a freeware license. In my dreams...
Several new additions for Google Maps were already rolled out but the parent company Google didn't announce them officially. Just like the past updates, this new set of imagery brings high-resolution photos for two new locations: India and the United Arab Emirates. As the Google Earth Blog reports, this improvement is currently compatible only with Google Maps but the parent company Google plans to include it into the downloadable solution in the upcoming weeks.
According to the same source, Google Maps now allows searching for India addresses and local businesses. "You can now see detailed roads for the UAE. You can't yet search for addresses. Support for searching for businesses is not built-in, but you can search and see web results for things people have already marked with KML," the blog mentioned about the United Arab Emirates update.
Google Maps is a web-based solution that allows users to view satellite maps straight from the window of the browser without installing anything. Recently, the parent company debuted Street View, a revolutionary function that brought the Mountain View giant into trouble after several users raised privacy concerns. The main reason was that Google Maps' new function shows way too many details because some of the consumers were able to view private stuff from their houses.
In addition, the US authorities reported that Google's mapping tools, Google Maps and Google Earth, were used by the terrorists to organize attacks against the nation. Although they managed to discover the attempt before anything happened, the terrorists admitted they were using the Google solutions to view detailed photos with the JFK International Airport.
In the past, there were several similar cases but every time the parent company blocked the attempts by replacing the imagery with older ones. The best example is Basra where the terrorists tried to attack the UK troops using details offered by Google Earth. Google replaced the photos with older ones captured before the departure of the army in the zone.
In a move designed to expand infrastructure support for its Windows Live collection of services and products Microsoft has leased two datacenter facilities located in Santa Clara from Digital Realty Trust. The two datacenters were previously controlled by Savvis. Initial reports pointing out that Microsoft had acquired the facilities are incorrect, as the Redmond company merely assumed both leases from Savvis. Digital Realty Trust – a company focused on corporate datacenters and Interrnet gateways management – leased the facilities to Microsoft until 2010. In Santa Clara, the Redmond company will now benefit from no less than "160,000 square feet of raised floor datacenter space" out of the total 300,000 square feet that it has rented.
"We are very pleased to welcome Microsoft as a direct tenant at these two Santa Clara facilities and look forward to continuing to build our relationship with them," commented Michael Foust, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Trust.
"These new lease structures are an important part of our vision for a globally scaled datacenter infrastructure that will keep pace with user demand for innovative online services. Leasing the space directly from Digital Realty Trust will allow us to gain energy and operational efficiencies, helping us continue to run some of the largest services in the world," said Arne Josefsberg, general manager, infrastructure services, Microsoft. "We appreciate Digital Realty Trust's commitment to and focus on technology infrastructure properties and look forward to working with them in future."
At the end of June 26, Microsoft revealed that its Windows Live platform was evolving into its next phase. With the focus still set on a business strategy involving Software + Services, Microsoft promised to deliver a new Windows Live product suite. The Redmond company failed to offer a timetable, but did disclose that users should expect new offerings in the coming months. The announcement came concomitantly with the availability of the beta milestones for Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Folders. Microsoft also informed that it is working on a single installer for the entire line of Windows Live services and products.
