1 Billion

OpenX Feeling Bullish - Ad Server Company Announces Strong Growth — OpenX, an open source ad server for web publishers, released statistics today to show its strong recent growth - especially in the last 6 months. We interviewed the CEO of OpenX, Tim Cadogan, about the data. We also wanted to know how OpenX compares with Google's competitor Ad Manager, and we discovered how exactly OpenX will make money. According to OpenX, as of December 2008 more than 300 billion ad impressions now run through its software every month. Its core product is still the open source OpenX Ad Server - version 2.6 was launched August 2008 and included a new... [Tags: 1 billion, comparative data, competitor, core product, elephant]

Top Database Stories of 2008 — The big stories in the database arena in 2008 included cloud databases, the release of SQL Server 2008 and acquisitions, most notably Sun Microsystems purchase of MySQL. - It was an interesting year for database vendors. It was a year of cloud databases and acquisitions, most notably Sun Microsystems purchase of MySQL. Here are some of the top stories for the database space in 2008, in no particular order: Sun Microsystems Acquires MySQL AB Suns $1 billion acqui...... [Tags: 1 billion, acquisitions, database space, database vendors, databases]

The Billion Mouse Mark and the Latest on Doug Engelbart’s Tale [Voices] — By John Murrell, Blogger, Good Morning Silicon Valley Computer peripheral powerhouse Logitech is working to get some PR mileage out of a milestone event — since letting the first one scamper into the retail market in 1985, the company has now shipped 1 billion computer mice. Pretty impressive, even if all the economic recovery plan numbers have sapped “billion” of some of its impact. “It’s rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company,” Logitech’s general manager Rory Dooley told the BBC. “Look at any other industry and it has never happened.” OK, members... [Tags: 1 billion, bbc, billionth, computer mice, dooley]

Who Cares About Cyber Monday? Citi Cuts Amazon Estimates [MediaMemo] — Yes, Cyber Monday sales were better than expected–up a not-terrible 15 percent. But Citigroup (C) analyst Mark Mahaney has gone ahead and cut his estimates for the world’s leading e-commerce company anyway: He thinks Amazon’s (AMZN) sales will grow seven percent this quarter, down from his earlier estimate of 16 percent growth. And he has cut his estimates for 2009. The logic here is straightforward: Mahaney believes the numbers that comScore (SCOR) put out about Monday’s e-commerce totals are accurate. But he also believes comScore’s continued prediction of no growth for the holiday period. So he now predicts that Amazon... [Tags: 1 billion, amazon, amzn, business model, citi]

Schools Suffering In Crisis As Endowments, Donations Wither — Harvard reports that the value of its endowment has declined $8 billion between the end of June 2008 through October 2008. That would make Harvard's endowment worth 22% less than at the end of June, or $26.9 billion -- but it probably has further to fall thanks to illiquid assets like private equity interests. Meanwhile, Harvard and its peers could be in trouble because fewer people will be able to afford college given the market crash. That will mean college administrators are facing some tough choices. Harvard is responding to the decline in its endowment by taking a "hard look"... [Tags: 1 billion, college administrators, decline, dire straits, endowment]

Chicago Parking Meters Up To A Buck An Hour: Equivalent Of Congestion Tax? — In a budget balancing move, Chicago is upping the parking meter rate from a quarter per hour to at least a dollar an hour, starting next year. Done by privatizing. Rates for most city parking meters will increase to $1 an hour in the coming months as a result of Mayor Richard Daley's deal to lease the spots for $1.1 billion to a private firm... The most expensive meters, which are found in the Loop, cost $3 an hour now. They will increase to $3.50 an hour next year and $6.50 by 2013. Via:Chicago Tribune, Clout Street, Most city... [Tags: 1 billion, budget, chicago tribune, clout, congestion]

Boeing, Northrop Grumman lose bids to build satellites in Southern California — Lockheed Martin clinches a $1.1-billion contract sought by Boeing and Northrop. In a major setback for satellite-making operations in Southern California, a $1.1-billion contract was awarded Tuesday to Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a new generation of weather satellites.... [Tags: 1 billion, bethesda md, boeing, clinches, grumman]

Microsoft to build data centers more quickly — As Microsoft plunges into online services, the company will have to invest billions in constructing vast data centers to host applications for both customers as well as itself (A recent BusinessWeek article said that Microsoft was set to build 20 supersize data centers costing more than $1 billion each).... [Tags: 1 billion, billions, businessweek, microsoft]

DeWolfe: 'Cautiously optimistic' about MySpace in recession — MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe said that he's "cautiously optimistic" about ad revenue for the News Corp.-owned social network in the face of a recession, Reuters reported Monday. Speaking at the outlet's Reuters Media Summit, DeWolfe said that MySpace's "revenue and profits are significant and they continue to grow in spite of the poor economy." Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. division that encompasses MySpace, Photobucket, and other digital properties, was declared the top destination for display ads on the Web several months ago. But display ads will be hit hard as ad budgets are cut, many critics have said--harder... [Tags: 1 billion, budgets, chief executive, chris dewolfe, digital advertising]

Yahoo's New CEO Should Be David Rosenblatt (YHOO) — After three rounds of polling the results are in: Readers say Yahoo (YHOO) should hire David Rosenblatt for its next CEO. Rosenblatt is the guy who cut costs while building revenues at DoubleClick before selling it to Google (GOOG) for $3.1 billion. He beat out Google's head of sales Tim Armstrong and former AOL CEO Jon Miller in our final round of voting. We haven't heard from Rosenblatt about whether he'd even take the job, but we decided to collect recommendations to send to Yahoo's board anyway. We started with another former CEO of DoubleClick, cofounder Kevin Ryan, who also... [Tags: 1 billion, advertising company, aol ceo, best man, cofounder]

Double Fusion Locks Down Four Big Game Publishers To Pipe Ads Onto The PS3 (SNE) — Last week Microsoft's (MSFT) Massive Entertainment signed a deal with THQ (THQI) to be the exclusive provider of ads into THQ video games on the Xbox 360 and PC. But Massive doesn't want to go so far as working with Sony's (SNE) rival PS3, so ad network Double Fusion is filling the void. Double Fusion today announced it would be the exclusive ad provider for THQ's PS3 games. That's just one part of a series of deals Double Fusion scored: The company will also be the exclusive ad vendor for PS3 games by publishers SEGA, Eidos Interactive, and Midway (MWY).... [Tags: 1 billion, big game, eidos interactive, electronic arts, fledgling industry]

After the recent news that Twitter turned down a $500 million acquisition offer from Facebook, I threw this tweet out there: Twitter for $500 million..gut says that’s too low. Twitter is the defining platform for lightweight interactions. $1 billion +… A nice discussion followed on FriendFeed about this notion. A couple counterpoints were made: “I disagree: their model is no longer unique. Moreover, they don’t offer any particular feature that separates them from other similar models. The best they have to offer is the user base, and the right name-brand shiny shiny with a few choice features would take most... [Tags: 1 billion, absurd character, adultfriendfinder, character limit, choice features]

An encouraging sign? Americans spent $535 million on e-commerce shopping this past Friday -- so-called "Black Friday" -- up 1% year-over-year, according to comScore. That's still a sharp deceleration from last year, when Black Friday e-commerce spending jumped 22% from 2006, according to comScore. But it's better than holiday e-commerce spending to date, which is down 4% from a similar period last year. _______________________________________________________________________________ 2008 Holiday Season To Date vs. Corresponding Days* in 2007 Non-Travel (Retail) Spending Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore, Inc. Holiday Season to Date Millions ($) 2007 2008 Pct... [Tags: 1 billion, 6 november, auctions, bellwether, black friday]

The Daily Flash: Eco, Space, Science (12/01) — Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists Explorers find ancient boat in Black SeaMumbai Terrorists Watch World React With Horror Using BlackBerrysVirtual Ears And The Cocktail Party Effect Sue world leaders $1 billion for global warming?How Geothermal Heat Pumps Could Power the FutureScientists: Earth is still heating upthe... [Tags: 1 billion, ancient boat, black sea, cocktail party effect, earth]

We’re all iPhone and Blackberry addicts at Mashable HQ, and yet Nokia’s latest launch is so slick that it makes our handsets feel a little impersonal. Nokia has debuted, in beta, a Flash application called Nokia Build. The pitch: remix your phone. You can design a 100% original Nokia 7310 Supernova cover using simple drawing tools, image uploads and a library of themes and iconography. Then, have it delivered to your door. Much like NikeID - the site to design your own custom sneakers - this beta launch is a sign that mass personalization is here to stay. Unfortunately... [Tags: 1 billion, advertising network, drawing tools, flash application, google]

Yep, it finally happened. One label has come forward and admitted that, for the first time, digital sales of its music has surpassed CDs. While many pundits asserted that loosing tunes via tiny downloadable files would instantaneously cause the deep-pocketed record labels to crumble as piracy ran rampant, the numbers tell a different story. In fact, music sales overall have declined from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $10.1 billion this year, and it's expected to shrink further. But for Atlantic, moving tracks on the information superhighway has proven quite successful; last quarter, digital sales accounted for 51% of its... [Tags: 1 billion, atlantic records, board image, business models, cd sales]

Half of Firefox Extensions Not Compatible with 3.1 — Mozilla is on the verge of releasing Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, and it’s quite possible that in the next month or two the final version will be pushed out the door. A major new release like this means that some of your favorite extensions might not be working, and Mozilla doesn’t want that to happen. With over 1 billion extension downloads they are now reaching out to developers asking them to update their extensions for the upcoming release. Being an extension developer myself I’ve tried to keep CyberSearch up-to-date and functional with all nightly releases of Firefox 3.1. In... [Tags: 1 billion, accuracy, beta, compatibility chart, compatible release]

From the home office in Lake Tahoe, California… #1: Better than spam? Chris Baskind reports a spammer on Twitter has a 21.5% return follow rate: http://bit.ly/EzHm #2: If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And…you never get everything you ask for. #3: Just added BackType to my FriendFeed. An interesting competitor to Disqus and Intense Debate. #4: I love this saying about parenting: “The days are long, the years are short.” >> So very, very true. #5: Why is Papa Bear such the dufus in the Berenstein Bears books? Giving us Dads a bad name… #6: Doing a keyword search... [Tags: 1 billion, berenstein bears books, california 1, christmas music, competitor]

Icahn Buys Another 7 Million Shares of Yahoo! — Well, don't accuse Carl Icahn of cutting and running. After losing $1 billion on his massive Yahoo bet--he bought 69 million shares last spring at about $25--Carl Icahn has (figuratively speaking) doubled down. In the past three days, the raider has bought another 6.7 million shares of Yahoo for about $65 million, bringing his total to 75.6 million shares. At today's closing price of $10.58, Carl's stake is worth $800 million, about $900 million less than he paid for his original position. The 76 million shares amount to 5.4% of the company. Where does Carl have to sell his stake... [Tags: 1 billion, 6 million, bet, biggest losers, carl icahn]

Better Place announces Bay Area electric car infrastructure plans; New Deal designs the hardware — Missing from much of the talk about electric cars has been how to charge them up--"just plug it in" sounds simple enough, but when you're dealing with a 400 pound battery that takes 5 hours to juice up, electric vehicle infrastructure suddenly snaps into focus as a make-or-break part of the picture. Palo Alto-based startup Better Place has been working on this part of the plug-in car puzzle since 2007; quietly for a while, but lately with some fanfare. Having already secured cooperation and investment to build infrastructure in Israel, Denmark and Australia, a major announcement was made on... [Tags: 1 billion, amit, back yard, battery exchange, electric car]