Web Development Live

BOSTON A combination of Microsoft and Yahoo could reshape the Internet landscape for millions of Web users: Would the two companies join their online portals? Could they rethink the desktop computer to integrate Web content more directly?The changes are potentially huge, but probably not in the short term.Microsoft executives did not indicate Friday exactly what they would do with Yahoo’s brand if their bid, now valued at $42 billion, is accepted. But analysts expect the combined companies to preserve many of their separate free services, like instant-messaging and e-mail programs.A more likely medium-term change is that some of Microsoft’s Web content could fade away or get added to Yahoo, which has a vast collection of news and features aggregated from other providers.Microsoft’s Web properties, including its Yahoo-like MSN portal, aren’t exactly slouches: They rank third, trailing only Yahoo and Google, in total visitors. But while Yahoo still is profitable, Microsoft’s online services are a consistent money loser. The MSN search engine is a laggard, even with recent efforts to soup it up under Microsoft’s online umbrella it calls “Live.”Having Yahoo in its tent could give Microsoft a rationalization for abandoning its unprofitable online elements.”I think MSN folds into Yahoo,” said Ian Campbell, CEO of Nucleus Research. “It would be foolish to keep that separate.”Perhaps the biggest change Microsoft and Yahoo could achieve together would be creating a better way to combine the Web and desktop computing - not to mention cell phones, TVs, cars and any other gadgets that might someday plug into the Internet.Consumers who access the Web on cell phones and handheld computers might be the first to find something new as a result of a Microsoft-Yahoo combination. Devices that run Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system could be better integrated with Yahoo content and possibly yield new services, like social networking functions.New ideas will be key to compete with Google’s Web presence. After all, people don’t “Microsoft” or “Yahoo” anything. Microsoft in particular tends to be tolerated more than loved. Google is also leading development of an alternative cell-phone operating system it calls Android.Eventually, a teamed-up Yahoo and Microsoft might be able to rethink the PC desktop - where Windows still runs 90 percent of the world’s PCs - so that Internet data such as stock prices, sports scores and weather are automatically baked in.”We all have our home page because we have a concept of a home page,” Campbell said. Before long, “we may not have a home page - it might just be the background of my desktop. There’s no reason why Microsoft can’t push this another level.”Microsoft might also use Yahoo’s online strengths to galvanize Web-based versions of some of its powerful desktop software applications, like Word and Excel.Open-source rivals and Google are threatening to bite into Microsoft’s lucrative Office software franchise with free versions of those kinds of “productivity” software. Microsoft is developing Web-based versions of its own, but slowly.Now Yahoo could be the face through which Microsoft offers those online applications. Perhaps one day a Microsoft-fueled package of “Yahoo Apps” will go up against “Google Apps.”Even with these possibilities, analyst David Mitchell Smith, a vice president at Gartner Inc., believes the biggest change from a Microsoft-Yahoo deal probably will be the one most Web surfers don’t notice. That will come as the companies try to broaden their ability to deliver ads all over the Internet, wherever it reaches.It’s necessary because being the most popular online destination - as Yahoo already is - is no longer enough. The explosion of blogs, video sites and other user-generated content has made our Internet travels more wide-ranging. As a result, the biggest Internet companies now need their ad networks to reach far beyond their home portals. Google has mastered that. Microsoft and Yahoo have not.”I think that’s really what it’s all about,” Smith said. “It’s about advertising. It’s about search.”(This version CORRECTS value of bid to billion sted million; CLARIFIES that deal is now worth 42, not 45, billion.)

BOSTON A combination of Microsoft and Yahoo could reshape the Internet landscape for millions of Web users: Would the two companies join their online portals? Could they rethink the desktop computer to integrate Web content more directly?The changes are potentially huge, but probably not in the short term.Microsoft executives did not indicate Friday exactly what they would do with Yahoo’s brand if their bid, now valued at $42 billion, is accepted. But analysts expect the combined companies to preserve many of their separate free services, like instant-messaging and e-mail programs.A more likely medium-term change is that some of Microsoft’s Web content could fade away or get added to Yahoo, which has a vast collection of news and features aggregated from other providers.Microsoft’s Web properties, including its Yahoo-like MSN portal, aren’t exactly slouches: They rank third, trailing only Yahoo and Google, in total visitors. But while Yahoo still is profitable, Microsoft’s online services are a consistent money loser. The MSN search engine is a laggard, even with recent efforts to soup it up under Microsoft’s online umbrella it calls “Live.”Having Yahoo in its tent could give Microsoft a rationalization for abandoning its unprofitable online elements.”I think MSN folds into Yahoo,” said Ian Campbell, CEO of Nucleus Research. “It would be foolish to keep that separate.”Perhaps the biggest change Microsoft and Yahoo could achieve together would be creating a better way to combine the Web and desktop computing - not to mention cell phones, TVs, cars and any other gadgets that might someday plug into the Internet.Consumers who access the Web on cell phones and handheld computers might be the first to find something new as a result of a Microsoft-Yahoo combination. Devices that run Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system could be better integrated with Yahoo content and possibly yield new services, like social networking functions.New ideas will be key to compete with Google’s Web presence. After all, people don’t “Microsoft” or “Yahoo” anything. Microsoft in particular tends to be tolerated more than loved. Google is also leading development of an alternative cell-phone operating system it calls Android.Eventually, a teamed-up Yahoo and Microsoft might be able to rethink the PC desktop - where Windows still runs 90 percent of the world’s PCs - so that Internet data such as stock prices, sports scores and weather are automatically baked in.”We all have our home page because we have a concept of a home page,” Campbell said. Before long, “we may not have a home page - it might just be the background of my desktop. There’s no reason why Microsoft can’t push this another level.”Microsoft might also use Yahoo’s online strengths to galvanize Web-based versions of some of its powerful desktop software applications, like Word and Excel.Open-source rivals and Google are threatening to bite into Microsoft’s lucrative Office software franchise with free versions of those kinds of “productivity” software. Microsoft is developing Web-based versions of its own, but slowly.Now Yahoo could be the face through which Microsoft offers those online applications. Perhaps one day a Microsoft-fueled package of “Yahoo Apps” will go up against “Google Apps.”Even with these possibilities, analyst David Mitchell Smith, a vice president at Gartner Inc., believes the biggest change from a Microsoft-Yahoo deal probably will be the one most Web surfers don’t notice. That will come as the companies try to broaden their ability to deliver ads all over the Internet, wherever it reaches.It’s necessary because being the most popular online destination - as Yahoo already is - is no longer enough. The explosion of blogs, video sites and other user-generated content has made our Internet travels more wide-ranging. As a result, the biggest Internet companies now need their ad networks to reach far beyond their home portals. Google has mastered that. Microsoft and Yahoo have not.”I think that’s really what it’s all about,” Smith said. “It’s about advertising. It’s about search.”(This version CORRECTS value of bid to billion sted million; CLARIFIES that deal is now worth 42, not 45, billion.)

WebMarshal 6.0 lets businesses block access to specific websites but also scans data that is uploaded and downloaded from all websites for malware. It is designed to prevent staff uploading inappropriate text or certain types of files that might contain confidential information to websites and can control how much time staff spend on individual websites and the bandwidth they consume. Marshal is offering the software at half price till the end of December. It claims it is the most comprehensive web content security package on the market. Marshal was founded in New Zealand in 1997 and returned its research and development team to Auckland in 2006 after a management buy-out from Nasdaq NetIQ, which bought it for US$23 million in 2002. About 40 of Marshal’s 100 staff are in Auckland and it appears to have thrived since its return, upping revenues by 43 per cent to about US$25 million in the year to June. About 10 per cent of its revenues come from New Zealand customers.

With a writers’ strike set to kick off today, the question looming over digital Hollywood is: Can the web become the cable of 2007?

The answer might be as murky as the politics of the strike itself.

Creators may be drawn to the web as other avenues are sealed off. While strike rules at the moment seem to limit writers’ latitude, some television veterans are calling for a rethinking of writers’ relationships with online platforms.

“There is an opportunity, if there is a protracted strike, to create channels of development on the internet that are outside the big companies, and I wonder if the guilds are thinking about that,” said Marshall Herskovitz, the veteran TV creator behind Quarterlife, the television-style drama that will air exclusively online.

In a prolonged stoppage, new-media experts say, viewers certainly will be looking for alternative platforms, and initial traffic numbers could be expected to spike. Such sites as Revver, DailyMotion, GoFish and My Damn Channel could become the TNTs and HBOs of today - unknown before the 22-week walkout in 1988, a part of life after it.

“Viewers have already been watching on the web, writers are writing for the web, and networks are looking for programming on the web,” said an executive at one online-content site. “The strike will speed all of that up.”

As NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker warned this week, a strike could be a “watershed event” that “drives more people away from primetime.”

But to keep those viewers, Web sites will have to offer content that consumers feel improves on the reruns and low-cost programming on the air.

And that might be the tricky part.

Online content sites and the agents who sell to them are seeking to stake out a delicate strike position. They hope to capitalise on the immense opportunities the strike offers.

But they also want to preserve relationships that could be more critical in the long term; if agents and sites are seen as too aggressive, they could jeopardise their standing with the WGA - and future deals along with it. That means a conservatism when it comes to signing new deals.

The latest strike rules from the WGA make clear that the guild will consider writing for websites a violation of strike rules. Members who do so could be penalised, and those who aren’t yet members could be prevented from ever joining the guild.

Still, there may be more wiggle room than those rules indicate.

The WGA reportedly has told some members which websites are considered signatory companies and which ones aren’t, potentially loosening the work rules for the latter firms.

And it’s an open question whether the WGA’s restrictions are posturing or policy. “The purpose of the rules is different for the two weeks leading up to a strike than it might be three months into a strike,” Herskovitz said. “All along the guilds have been a bit overwhelmed by Internet production and at the same time winking at it because it’s too small and too invisible to be worth policing.”

The real fear for the WGA may not be that writers pen material for the internet - it’s that such material will find its way onto network airwaves.

So far, the WGA restrictions haven’t stopped some sites from mapping out a plan to seek out creators.

“We think the strike will give us many more opportunities to sign new talent in the coming weeks and months,” said Rob Barnett, the former MTV executive who now runs original-content site My Damn Channel, which features series from The Ten director David Wain and The Simpsons veteran Harry Shearer. “The dark times for old media are definitely good times for new media.”

And unlike a more binary split on television, the web is home to content that crosses genres, which might leave room for many creators. “This is much greyer than the rules on television,” one agent said. “If I’m a man on the street asking funny questions and getting goofy responses, is that considered written or not?”

Agents said younger writers who are hungry to work have been talking to them about finding work on the sites, WGA rules be damned.

Revver’s Angela Gyetvan said that the site “welcomes an increase” of viewers and creators if a strike takes hold. But she expressed concerns that the rules could tie the site’s hands as much as it did the networks.

The original content sites connected to networks - notably Viacom new-media properties such as AtomFilms and News Corp.’s MySpace - find themselves in a double bind: Not only do they have the relationships to manage, but they also need to fight the perception that they’re simply extensions of the same networks showing recycled content.

Agents expressed hope that the WGA will loosen some rules, both to win goodwill for members and encourage the alternative platforms to increase their leverage in contract negotiations with the studios.

If they do, the web might become the cable of the future; if they resist, web content might look no better or more appealing than the cable networks of yesterday - or today.