Pacific Internet launches ‘clean feed’

ASIA Pacific services provider Pacific Internet has launched a business grade “clean feed” content filtering system that restricts employee access to web sites that pose a security or productivity risk.

The service, launched in partnership with MailGuard and called PacNet CleanWeb, is tailored for the business and government markets.

Pacific Internet senior vice-president Dennis Muscat said the company had previously partnered with MailGuard to launch its PacNet CleanMail service a year ago.

“We’re aware of the vulnerability many businesses face with staff increasingly accessing the web for social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace,” Mr Muscat said.

“This is a threat to organisations both from a security and a productivity perspective.”

CleanWeb helps manage staff productivity and protect the organisation from malicious attacks via the web, as well as potential litigation due to web browsing abuse.

PacNet CleanWeb provides management, control and reporting of the internet web browsing resource in organisations. The service protects networks and systems against web-based threats.

“PacNet CleanWeb gives businesses the opportunity to manage what their users are actually doing,” Mr Muscat said.

“Administrators simply use the console to manage access to the web by user, file types, key words and sites by individual, group or company wide rules as required.”

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Google draws in MySpace into fold

GOOGLE has joined forces with News Corporation unit MySpace to launch OpenSocial, a set of common APIs for building applications for social networking sites.

The OpenSocial initiative effectively makes Google a clearinghouse for social networking applications.

Google, along with MySpace and others in the social networking space, hope the intitiative will put the brakes on the phenomenal growth of competitor Facebook, which opened its service to third-party developers five months ago.

In following the Facebook lead, MySpace says the announcement underscores the company’s “commitment to supporting standards that foster innovation.”

“Our partnership with Google allows developers to gain massive distribution without unnecessary specialized development for every platform,” MySpace chief executive and co-founder Chris DeWolfe said.

“This is about helping the start-up spend more time building a great product rather than rebuilding it for every social network,” he said.

Global members of the OpenSocial community include Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

The companies hope the platform will attract third-party developers to their sites.

“As the most trafficked website in the country and the most popular social network in the world, MySpace is one of the leading forces in the global social Web,” said Google chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt.

“We’re thrilled to grow our strategic relationship with MySpace by joining forces on this important initiative.”

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Asia-Pacific Internet survey released

US-BASED internet metrix firm comScore has released the first comprehensive review of Net usage in the Asia-Pacific region, making some surprising – and not-so-surprising – discoveries.

The comScore World Metrix numbers reveal that the Asia-Pacific makes up fully one-third of all internet users. But with internet penetration rates varying from 65 per cent (South Korea) to three per cent (India), there remains enormous growth potential.

The region is characterised by the vast differences between its many country markets.

While South Korea boasts the highest rate of internet usage (from home or work locations among users aged 15 or older), Australia is second with 62 per cent penetration, New Zealand third (60 per cent) and Hong Kong fourth (59 per cent).

There is still a lot of room for growth. The average person in the Asia-Pacific region visited the internet on 13.8 days in the month and spent 20.2 hours viewing 2,171 pages. This compares to the global averages of 17.1 usage days per month, 25.2 hours per month, and 2,519 pages per month, indicating that the Asia-Pacific region’s PC-based Internet usage is somewhat lower than the rest of the world.

Yahoo sites are the most popular in the region, though in Australia Yahoo sites are ranked third behind Microsoft and Google.

Meanwhile, comScore has also found that MySpace is starting to lose ground to FaceBook in the US as the most popular social networking service among teenagers.

Though MySpace is still the leader over FaceBook overall, comScore says in the US visitors to MySpace under the age of 18 dropped 30 per cent in the past year while FaceBook visitors surged 250 per cent.

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News Corp dips into Photobucket

TRADITIONAL media giant News Corporation has furthered bolstered its internet ambitions, acquiring media-sharing site Photobucket for about US$300 million (A$362 million).

News said the acquisition, made through Fox Interactive Media (FIM), meant theat users of FIM’s other user-generated content property MySpace could access Photobucket’s photo and video technologies.

Now owning MySpace and Photobucket, News now controls two of the largest, most trafficked social networking and user content sites in the world. MySpace boasts about 200 million users, while Photobucket has attracted more than 44 million.

Fox Interactive president Peter Levinsohn said Photobucket also would be able to incorporate advanced slideshow generators and other editing tools from Flektor, which Fox Interative also acquired this week.

“Together, they represent a powerful combination and we are thrilled for them to join our network,” Mr Levinsohn said.

Photobucket chief executive and co-founder Alex Welch said the acquisition would not change anything in the day to day operations of the company, which he said would operate as a standalone company within FIM.

The acquisition would deliver Photobucket the resources of Fox Interactive, enabling it to deliver new tools faster.

“We plan to continue developing innovative tools that enhance self-expression and give you the best media sharing, linking and searching experience on the Web,” Mr Welch wrote in the company blog.

“Partnering with FIM will give us added resources and support to deliver on this vision, as well as the ability to offer new features for you -- our most important audience,” he said.

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News Corp dips into Photobucket

TRADITIONAL media giant News Corporation has furthered bolstered its internet ambitions, acquiring media-sharing site Photobucket for about US$300 million (A$362 million).

News said the acquisition, made through Fox Interactive Media (FIM), meant theat users of FIM’s other user-generated content property MySpace could access Photobucket’s photo and video technologies.

Now owning MySpace and Photobucket, News now controls two of the largest, most trafficked social networking and user content sites in the world. MySpace boasts about 200 million users, while Photobucket has attracted more than 44 million.

Fox Interactive president Peter Levinsohn said Photobucket also would be able to incorporate advanced slideshow generators and other editing tools from Flektor, which Fox Interative also acquired this week.

“Together, they represent a powerful combination and we are thrilled for them to join our network,” Mr Levinsohn said.

Photobucket chief executive and co-founder Alex Welch said the acquisition would not change anything in the day to day operations of the company, which he said would operate as a standalone company within FIM.

The acquisition would deliver Photobucket the resources of Fox Interactive, enabling it to deliver new tools faster.

“We plan to continue developing innovative tools that enhance self-expression and give you the best media sharing, linking and searching experience on the Web,” Mr Welch wrote in the company blog.

“Partnering with FIM will give us added resources and support to deliver on this vision, as well as the ability to offer new features for you -- our most important audience,” he said.

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