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Over the summer, Google launched a Second Life-esque 3D chat product called Lively. It seems Lively is not exactly living up to its name. Google is killing Lively at the end of the year.

While Lively is certainly not the first Google product to head to the chopping block, its shelf life did seem a bit short. Still, Google says it needs to focus on its flagship areas of search, ads, and apps.

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is planning to introduce a net neutrality bill in January, according to Reuters. President-elect Barack Obama has said he supports net neutrality, though it is not yet clear whether he backs Dorgan’s bill.

The bill would prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking web content. Net neutrality supporters say some ISPs have blocked content because of concerns over the amount of bandwidth used by customers. Others have slowed downloading activities for the same reason.

Internet service provider AT&T told Reuters it would be crazy to block content because the customers would just jump ship to an ISP that doesn’t. Blocking content would be akin to shooting themselves in the foot.

Indeed, the bill would pit ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless and cable companies against content providers such as Google and Microsoft.

Yes, in Washington, enemies make the strangest bedfellows.

Related Reading:
Uncle Sam Says: Thumbs Down on Net Neutrality
Without Neutrality, What Happens to Search?

Women are planning to spend less according to two surveys released today.

In a survey by the Marketing to Moms Coalition, moms plan to cut spending on holiday gifts. Offline is expected to be hit the hardest, with an 8% drop over last year. Online will decline by 2%.

• 87% of moms plan to shop at big discount retailers like Wal-mart and Target
• Department stores come in second at 37%.
• Shoe and specialty clothing retailers come in third at 35%.

“Older kids tend to want expensive presents like cell phones, video games, trendy clothes and computer equipment,” says Maria Bailey, a founder of the Marketing to Moms Coalition, and author of the book, Mom 3.0, Marketing with Today’s Mother by Leveraging New Media and Technology. “Moms are telling their older kids that this year, they’re just going to have to wait.”

Another survey from Frank About Women shows that women (not just moms) are planning to cut holiday spending. First on the chopping block? Themselves.

62% of women are asking friends and family to forgo buying them a gift this year due to the economy.

They asked survey participants who would be cut from the gift list that normally would be on.

• 57% of those who normally give gifts to their neighbors plan to forego the gift this year
• 53% will skip their bosses
• 52% will cut employees and service providers (i.e. hairdressers) from their list
• 50% won’t give gifts to co-workers this year

So, who is getting a gift this year?

• 96% said they won’t let a bad economy stand in the way of giving gifts to their kids
• 86% will give gifts to their parents
• 85% will give gifts to their spouse or partner (Stay out of the dog house, guys!)

“Not only are women planning to spend less on others, they are actively encouraging their friends and family to omit them from the gift list this year,” says Nicole Green, senior strategic brand planner at FAW. “This self-sacrificing mindset represents a significant cultural shift as a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility and frugality trump spending and splurging for many women. Marketers who speak to the real meaning of the holidays are more likely to resonate with women this season and benefit from their spending power.”

Related Reading:
Microsoft Study Reveals Online and Digital Behavior of Women
Mom Bloggers Prove Powerful Resource to Marketing and Branding Success
Moms See Search as Task-Oriented; Websites as Entertainment

The new Yahoo! front page went into testing a couple months ago. The redesign effort also coincides with the new user interface, YUI 3.

Here’s a peek:

Nicholas Zakas of the Yahoo! User Interface team expanded on the UI efforts by explaining the goals for the framework of YUI 3:

1. Eliminate global dependencies. We wanted each part of the page to operate separately from all of the others. Each part should have no knowledge of what else is on the page and therefore can’t depend on objects to be globally available. The 2.x library is based on the global YAHOO object, which we would have had to abstract away; the 3.x concept of YUI instances that could be individually manipulated worked perfectly to achieve this goal.
2. Make it small, make it fast. The Front Page can’t afford to be slow, so we needed to have as little code as possible to get everything up and running. YUI 3 impressed us with its organization into small, atomic units that allowed us to specifically include parts of the library that we wanted while eliminating parts that were unnecessary. Further, one of the goals of YUI 3 was to optimize for runtime execution and make it faster than the 2.x version. Once again, YUI 3’s approach was directly in line with the Front Page’s goals.
3. Create version independence. From the start, we didn’t want to have dependencies on specific versions of YUI components as this can lead to maintenance issues. What we really wanted was for each part of the page to be able to use whatever version of the components that they wanted. The sandboxing feature of YUI 3 opened up the possibility of having two (or more) YUI instances each loading different versions of various components while not interfering with each other.
4. Allow code portability. Having worked at Yahoo! for a combined five years, Steve and I knew that anything we put on a Yahoo! property could be a candidate for porting to someplace else. We knew that this possibility meant the code had to stand on its own and not make assumptions about the environment in which it was placed. We thought about the most difficult environment possible: a locked-down browser environment where the JavaScript code has no direct access to the DOM. Since YUI 3 can abstract away the DOM through its Node interface, we had the entrypoint necessary to make this requirement a reality.
5. Be forward compatible. The project to create a new Front Page is an incredibly long one and we wanted to be as forward-looking as possible. We knew that if we created the framework on YUI 2.x that we’d be hard pressed to get time to upgrade later on. By building on YUI 3 from the start, we eliminated the need for developing an upgrade path later on.

AOL’s Platform-A has collaborated with T-mobile for a two day ad blitz. The campaign will have the mobile carrier buying 1 billion impressions over the two day time frame, which is expected to reach 81.5 million consumers. Platform-A currently reaches 90% of the U.S. internet audience.

What will be advertised? The new Android-powered G1, of course!

“The T-Mobile G1 offers a rich, accessible mobile Web experience for the masses, so we want to drive that message to the broadest range of U.S. consumers possible,” said Brett Dennis, director, branded entertainment and media management, T-Mobile USA. “The groundbreaking experience of the T-Mobile G1 is really what motivated us to pursue this exceptional online advertising program.”

Clearly, both AOL and T-mobile are gunning for the upcoming holiday season:

“The innovation behind the T-Mobile Billion Block clearly demonstrates the value marketers place on the combination of reach, impact and innovation that only Platform-A can offer,” said Lynda Clarizio, President of Platform-A. “It also spotlights the role online media will play in the upcoming buying season, with strategic marketers like T-Mobile relying on the near-universal reach of Platform-A to connect with United States consumers in an effective, efficient and engaging way.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has responded to Jerry Yang’s comments about being open to a Microsoft acquisition. Speaking to a group of developers in Sydney, he dismissed the option of an outright acquisition, but remained open to a search deal. Though, even that didn’t sound particularly promising:

We made an offer… We made another offer. It was clear that [Yahoo] doesn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on. We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not an acquisition. And that didn’t work either, and we moved on… and they moved on… We are not interested in going back and relooking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share … I’m sure there are still opportunities for some kind of partnership around search.

Of course, all of this has been a game of poker from the start. So, whether Ballmer is truly saying no or simply just waiting to see if Yahoo’s stock drops so low that Microsoft becomes the JP Morgan (Yahoo being the Bear Stearns, of course) remains to be seen.

And why not wait for a merger of Yahoo and AOL and then scoop up 2 competitors for the price of 1 (and a reduced price at that!)?

Microsoft is smart to hold on to its stash of cash while the economy hangs out in the pooper. Sorry, Jerry, but you had your chance.

links for 2008-11-05: FCC Passed "White Space" What Does It Mean Twitter Updates for 2008-1.. http://tinyurl.com/68oz29 #
New Blog Post - links for 2008-11-05:
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New Blog Post - Twitter Updates for 2008-11-05:
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Twitter Updates for 2008-11-05: New Article - Send Flowers Online [...]

Yahoo announced that Google has decided to terminate its advertising partnership with Yahoo, “following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s concerns,” the Yahoo press release stated.

While I understand Google does not want to add another legal battle, does this mark a pull back on the part of Google from their previous aggressive acquisition and partnership agenda?

The press release went on to state:

While the implementation of the services agreement with Google would have enabled Yahoo! to accelerate its investments in its top business priorities through an infusion of additional operating cash flow, this deal was incremental to Yahoo!’s product roadmap and does not change Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in search. The fundamental building blocks of a stronger Yahoo! in both sponsored and algorithmic search were put in place independent of the agreement.

Hopefully this will not further impact Yahoo or Google’s stock prices. Yahoo had announced a possible partnership/merger with AOL earlier this week but the loss of the Google partnership may now jeopardize that as well.

Barron’s Eric Savitz reported this could lead to another Microsoft offer - though one lowered to $20 a share - which I doubt Yahoo would entertain.

The FCC agreed to open the “white space” - the broadcast spectrum used by over the air television - to use by others apart from the regulated television stations, by a vote of 5-0 yesterday. This is a major accomplishment that companies such as Google, Microsoft, Dell and Hewlitt-Packard have been lobbying for over the past couple of years.

As Larry Page noted in the Official Google blog, “This is a clear victory for Internet users and anyone who wants good wireless communications.”

The WIA details:

“TV white spaces will increase accessibility to more reliable broadband networks, known as “mesh networks.” Mesh networks are self forming networks created by consumer electronics devices. Devices will simply find each other in the same way they find Wi-Fi hot spots today and broadband traffic can be routed through devices based on consumer preferences. For example, mesh networks will allow users wireless connectivity in the business environment. Easily accessible connectivity to office networks will generate efficiency in routine business processes-from printing documents remotely to transferring data to a client during a meeting.

Mesh networks also help to create connectivity in dead zones. These networks make it possible for the most common electronic devices to communicate with each other to resourcefully locate and establish a connection in nontraditional scenarios—like in a tunnel, or while riding the subway. “

The opportunities have been called “wifi on steroids” - as this spectrum would provide cheaper and more powerful wifi broadband access. There is a good video explaining the white space oportunities offered by the Wireless Innovation Alliance.

There have been promises of services being available within 90 days of it being opened up for use so we will have to wait and see what develops, but given the penetration is better and the service is wider - the use of this broadband methodology could dramatically increase internet access to many at a lower cost and using less power to do so.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates sees white space as helping WiFi “explode in terms of its usage, even out into some of these less dense areas where distance has been a big problem for Wi-Fi.”

Yahoo! Live, a live streaming video product build on Brickhouse, will stop broadcasting December 3, 2008. In a statement on the Yahoo! Live blog, the Keith Thornhill said:

Our mission here on the Brickhouse team is to quickly develop product ideas that can add value to Yahoo! as a whole. To do this effectively we constantly evaluate our early-stage products and sometimes have to make the hard decision to move on, in order to continue exploring new territory and developing new products.

I, for one, will always hold dear a Yahoo! Live memory from this past summer. My family had (finally) just gotten a Nintendo Wii and my daughter and I live broadcasted our earliest Wii Sports matches.

On the other hand, I won’t miss the creepy people who had less than the best intentions with live streaming.