There are many pros and cons to the issue of the Internet’s influences on education, and experts have called it everything from the hemlock of higher education to an innovative boon. While it’s probably neither of these extremes, there are some high and low points of the Internet’s role in higher education that can be observed on their own. By enabling students to take advantage of the positive elements of the Internet for educational purposes and restricting the detrimental sides of the Web, academic success can become a more widespread reality.(more…)
*Facebook.com Now Accounts for Nearly 1 in 4 Online Display Ads in U.S.*
RESTON, VA, November 8, 2010 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of the U.S. online display advertising market for Q3 2010, which showed strong gains following softness for much of 2009. Data from the comScore Ad Metrix online advertising intelligence service indicated that nearly 1.3 trillion display ads were delivered to U.S. Internet users during the third quarter, marking a 22-percent increase versus year ago. (more…)
*British Consumers Exposed to 221 Billion Display Ads During Q3 2010*
LONDON, UK, November 3, 2010 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of the UK online display advertising market for Q3 2010, which showed strong gains compared to Q3 2009. Data from comScore’s Ad Metrix services showed that UK internet users received more than 221 billion display ads during the third quarter, marking a 34-percent increase versus year ago. (more…)
*New gift card delivery option available just in time for the holiday season*
SEATTLE, Nov 02, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. today announced a new method for sending Amazon.com Gift Cards to friends on Facebook. Customers can now connect to their Facebook account on Amazon.com (www.amazon.com/giftcards-facebook) and create a personalized gift card that will be delivered on the recipient’s Facebook Wall.
After connecting to his or her Facebook account on Amazon.com, the sender can choose a gift card design, specify an amount up to $5,000 and provide an optional gift card message. The sender can also schedule the date for the gift card to appear on the recipient’s Facebook Wall up to a year in advance. (more…)
*Further Extends Yahoo!’s Connected TV Leadership; Offers Consumers a Cinematic Internet(TM) experience and Increased Distribution for Publishers*
SEOUL, South Korea & SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov 02, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! and Samsung today announced an extended partnership to deliver Yahoo! Connected TV in 26 new countries across Europe, bringing Yahoo! Connected TV on Samsung TVs to 39 countries worldwide. Together with Samsung’s own Internet@TV service, Samsung’s 2010 European Internet-connected TVs will also feature a new full-screen Yahoo! user interface. Today’s news builds on the partnership that Yahoo! and Samsung first announced in January 2009. (more…)
Harvard graduate Kevin Lewis (left) and UCLA sociologist Andreas Wimmer are co-authors of a new Facebook study on how college students form friendships. Image credit: Luis Gomez
Race may not be as important as previously thought in determining who buddies up with whom, suggests a new UCLA–Harvard University study of American college students on the social networking site Facebook.
“Sociologists have long maintained that race is the strongest predictor of whether two Americans will socialize,” said Andreas Wimmer, the study’s lead author and a sociologist at UCLA. “But we’ve found that birds of a feather don’t always flock together. Whom you get to know in your everyday life, where you live, and your country of origin or social class can provide stronger grounds for forging friendships than a shared racial background.”
“We’ve been able to show that just because two people of the same racial background are hanging out together, it’s not necessarily because they share the same racial background,” said co-author Kevin Lewis, a Harvard graduate student in sociology. (more…)
*Average Internet User in the Netherlands Spent Nearly 32 Hours Online in September 2010*
London, U.K., 27 October, 2010 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study of internet usage in the Netherlands based on the comScore Media Metrix audience measurement service. The data revealed that the Netherlands ranked highest among European countries in terms of frequency of internet visitation with 78.2 visits per visitor in September 2010. Dutch internet users also exhibit strong engagement with an average of 31.9 hours per visitor spent online in September 2010. Users spent most of their time on Portals (7.2 hours), followed by Instant Messaging (6.9 hours), Social Networking (3.5 hours) and E-Mail (3.1 hours). (more…)
*More Than 90 Percent of the Spanish Internet Population Uses the Web for Search and Social Networking*
MADRID, Spain, 26 October, 2010 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a ranking of the top ten Web properties and categories in Spain based on the comScore Media Metrix audience measurement service for September 2010. The data revealed that each of the top ten web properties in Spain have grown over the past year, with Facebook exhibiting the strongest growth with a 49 percent increase. The most visited categories in Spain were Portals, which reached 99.5 percent of the total Internet audience, Search/Navigation (92.1 percent reach) and Social Networking (90.1 percent reach). (more…)
