companies

AOL has acquired two local online media companies Patch Media Corp. and Going Inc. in an effort to further build on its current local network. Patch is a local news platform focused on smaller towns and Going is a local platform for people to find and share information about things to do in a number of cites.

Update: The original title of this article was "USA Today Publisher Restricting Employees from Using Social Networks?" USA Today called Murdok requesting a change because it made it look like USA Today itself was discouraging social media use, which is apparently not the case.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced the release of Click Measurement Guidelines, a document establishing parameters for buying and selling cost-per-click (CPC) adver

DEVELOPING STORIES: UPDATED: Over what should have been a slow pre-holiday weekend two stories broke that again put the major labels at odds with several major Music 2.0 companies. Here are links to our updated coverage:  

Social media will be adopted by more than 60 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies with a Web site by 2010, according to research firm Gartner."A key benefit of establishing a community is the amount of information an organization can gain about its customer base, which can be used for short-and long-term customer relationships," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.

A group of 16 major IT and mobile companies have united behind a GSMA-led initiative to promote mobile broadband.The companies include Dell, Ericsson, Lenovo, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Toshiba and Vodafone. The group's goal is to help people easily identify laptops that have built in access to the Internet via high-speed networks. The marketing initiative is worth more than $1 billion over the next year.The group will label laptop computers that meet their standards for mobile broadband access with a badge that identifies the laptops as ready for mobile broadband connections.

 

The majority of businesses have no formal plans to adopt social media or use its benefits that can lead to better customer relations and increased sales.Fear and apathy are the primary barriers to using social media, according to a global survey by Avanade, an IT consultancy company.Over half of respondents to the survey said senior executives and IT staff resist adoption out of fear it will reduce employee productivity.  Sixty percent believe management does not understand the potential social media offers employees and customers.