Twitter will support Chinese language in the coming weeks, according to a research report published today.
It's not clear how well that will help Chinese users in the mainland, since the service has been banned since 2009. It may not make much of a dent at all in Twitter's hopes to capture the hearts and minds of Chinese-language users of the microblogging platform.
Microblogging and curation platform Tumblr reached its 10 billionth post today, marking another milestone for the hip and ever-growing service.
The service currently hosts over 28 million blogs, which are used to publish tens of millions of posts each day. The site's total posts hit 10 billion earlier today, according to the company's "about" page.
Microsoft is stepping up its action against the operators of the Rustock botnet that terrorized computers around the world for years before it was taken down in March. The software giant is offering up to $250,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of individuals responsible for the botnet. With that type of cash as an incentive, the Rustock operators may not be able to hide for long.
The Rustock botnet was responsible for a great quantity of the world's spam during the time it was active. The operators of the botnet are wanted for various criminal activities including counterfeit advertisements and violating the trademarks of Microsoft and pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer. With Rustock out of the picture, the world's spam levels are at their lowest levels since 2008. Do you know anybody associated with Rustock and looking for a reward?
Google does almost nothing interesting in travel search. Bing offers a much more compelling travel search experience and today added a new little feature that makes me want to use it even more.
Search on Bing for the phrase "fly to..." and the name of a major destination city and you will now see an automatic display of the best dates to fly from where you are to that place, with the lowest price for a round trip ticket and advice about whether the price is likely to go up or down if you waited to buy the ticket later. It's really cool.
Online payment company PayPal has opened up its micropayment solution to "game developers, media publishers, or anyone interested in selling digital content on a global scale." The solution was first announced last October when the company said that the upcoming feature would offer "a competitive fee structure for micropayments, with pricing at 5 percent plus 5 cents for purchases under $12."
Today, PayPal's two-click micropayment solution has gone public and it has the potential to change how publishers and other online merchants interact with their customers.
It's been just two years now since WordPress, the popular blogging platform, released its first mobile app. Today the company is celebrating reaching the million mobile user mark by releasing another app - this time for Nokia smartphones.
It's amazing to think that, as WordPress mobile project developer Isaac Keyet writes, "each day thousands of posts are written and posted using nothing but a wee phone keyboard and a built-in camera." Move over, Gutenberg!
Keeping good on a promise made earlier this summer, PayPal, one of the most popular online payment providers, announced today the unveiling of a micropayment solution. According to the company, the new product will offer low fees and a seamless integration that "lets consumers pay for digital goods and content in as little as two clicks".
Posterous, the minimalist blogging platform, may have allowed users to post to their blogs via email, or even the specially-formatted Posterous for mobile devices, but now it's gone that one extra step. Posterous for the iPhone is here, allowing users to post, manage their settings, upload media and even geo-tag their updates.
ABC News Radio and StatusNet, the open-source microblogging service that serves as the foundation for identi.ca, have "unofficially" partnered to unveil a newswire for the radio service.
While the partnership may not be "official", it is yet another vote of confidence in the Twitter-alternative and the open Web.
The Associated Press is reporting this morning that online payment service PayPal "plans to roll out a payment product by the end of the year" that will make micropayments - transactions involving small amounts of money - quicker and more seamless. The company has already dabbled in making micropayments possible with lower transaction fees, but a more seamless integration with other services could really make the micropayment model - which has gained little traction in many realms - potentially viable.
