If reports are to be believed Google has drawn up detailed plans for closing its Chinese search engine, as talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse. Google, is the world’s largest search engine. A person familiar with the company’s thinking said, while a decision could be made soon, Google was likely to take some time to follow through with its plans. This people say would be to takes steps to protect local employees from retaliation by authorities.

Earlier China had warned Google against flouting the country’s laws, as expectations grew over a resolution to a public battle over censorship and cyber-security. Google had earlier threatened to pull out of China in January if it could not offer an unfiltered Chinese search engine. The threat came after cyber attacks originating from China on it and about 30 other firms. China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong, told reporters on Friday said ”If you don’t respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences will be on you.” Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive of Google had said on Wednesday that he hoped to announce a result to talks with Chinese authorities on offering an uncensored search engine in China.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shares oversight of the use of Internet with a number of other bodies. Some more bureaucracies are involved in foreign access, thus complicating the Chinese government’s response to Google’s challenge.

Google which in the last few years has acquired several internet based websites, services and tools recently acquired Picnik. Picnik is an online photo editing tool that allows users to crop, do touch-ups and add effects to their digital photos. Picnik launched in 2005, has already been integrated as a online photo editing tool with a number of websites including Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, Flickr, Yahoo Mail and Photobucket.

Brian Axe, product management director at Google said. 93We are not announcing any significant changes to Picnik today, though we will be working hard on integration and new features. As well, we would like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks.94

One of world92s leading social-networking website Facebook has passed Google to become the most visited website in the US. According to industry tracker Hitwise, Facebook started by Mark Zukerberg in 2004 finished the week ending March 13 as the most visited site in US. Heather Dougherty, Director-research (Hitwise) said it92s a important milestone with Facebook enjoyed a 185% increase in visits in the same period, over Googles92 9% increase in the same time. However it does not include Google websites such as social-networking website Orkut started by Orkut BFCyFCkkF6kten in 2004, or the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.

Together, both Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of the US Internet visits last week. However David Drummond, SVP-Google said 93We are at a critical point in the future of the internet. All of us have a choice. We can allow repressive policies to take flight and spread across the globe, or we can work together against such challenges and uphold the fundamental human right to free expression.94 It may be known that Google has added the social-networking feature Buzz to its Gmail service as well as new message inbox that echoes Gmail’s format, to reposition itself from challenges faced from Facebook.com and micro-blogging site Twitter.com.

According to online tracking firm, comScore; Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, 2009. Google, meanwhile has taken measures to limit online free expression, in 40 countries. It may be known that Google and YouTube services are or have been blocked completely in 25 countries.

Google Inc closed its China-based search service and began redirecting web searchers to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Though part of China, Hong Kong with its semiautonomous status due to its past history as a British colony, and Google is not legally required to censor results there. The company said it intends to continue research and development in China, as well as maintain a sales staff there, even after closing Google.cn and rerouting traffic to the unfiltered search site in Hong Kong. China reacted to the move by saying Google was “totally wrong” and had “violated the written promise it made on entering the Chinese market”. The Chinese government on its part denied involvement in Internet hacker attacks said to have generated from China and defended its online. The USA had urged Beijing to investigate complaints of cyberintrusions, after Google complained its site was hacked from China, especially endangering the emails of human rights activists in Tibet and Xinxiang.

The standoff that began on January 12 culminated with “Welcome to Google Search in China’s new home.” displays to search results in the simplified Chinese characters that are used in mainland China. However, the results can’t all be accessed inside China, because government filters restrict the links that can be clicked by mainland audiences. The Chinese-language version of Google search in the US as well as the mapping and music services on Google.cn have been untouched. The Chinese government has reacted by threatening to block access to Google’s other services, such as YouTube, which is owned by Google and social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. The tensions with China have prompted Google to delay plans to sell some new wireless phones running on its mobile software. David Drummond, Google’s top lawyer said “Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a nonnegotiable legal requirement.”

Before 2006 Chinese users could search through Google sites such as Google.com, although filters inside China kept people there from clicking through to links generated by queries such as “Tiananmen Square massacre”, 93Dalai Lama94, 93Uighur94. But when Google tried to better reach Web users in China by setting up Google.cn, it meant complying with rules requiring the omission of search results the government deemed subversive or pornographic. But this compliance sparked criticism by Google supporters, including some of its own employees, who believed the company was violating its “Don’t Be Evil” motto. The worlds largest internet search company vowed to shake loose from government-imposed restraints on the Internet; after it determined that Google and more than 20 other US companies were targeted in computer hacking attacks originating from China. Although Google never made a direct accusation the Chinese government role was

Google had earlier hoped to persuade China to let it run a search engine that could deliver unrestricted results; failing that wanted a common ground to maintain its research center and sales team in the country. Google which earned US$250 million to US$600 million from China said its decision to re-route traffic to an uncensored Hong Kong site for users in mainland China is 91entirely legal92; but China issued a blistering public attack on Google through a high-profile Communist Party newspaper. It seems by challenging Chinese government, Google appears to have violated an unspoken rule of doing business in China, especially in the Internet industry where Beijing feels its crucial to maintaining its authoritarian rule. This has resulted in realignments of business. Tianya.cn, a popular portal with 32 million registered users, said it was taking full control over social networking and question-and-answer services operated jointly with Google. China Unicom Ltd., one of China’s biggest mobile phone companies, hinted that it would shelve plans to offer two cell phones made by Motorola and Samsung with Google’s Android program. Publicly, Google’s continuing to work with its Chinese business partners by providing them with censored search services in an effort to abide by already existing contracts.

The U.S. State Department meanwhile has said it was not involved in Google’s decision over its search engine, and championed for internet freedom. This has added to Beijing’s concerns about collusion and aggravated recently tense U.S.-China relations. With growing pessimism in the US and European business community that Beijing was closing off access to the domestic market, Google is likely to face a tough road ahead to rehabilitation in the China market.

Website Development

Developing a website by following a set technique is not a big problem. The real problem is to develop a website that is not just able to draw people to it, but also generates business. A website that does not provide the correct information, does not help create a better business opportunity; is actually of no use. A website created to provide information, which is of no use to the visitor is as good as a paper weight.

Information on the Internet

The total information available on the internet if totaled will add up to 12 stacks of paper, with each stack of such great height that if put on the road side by side, each stack will cover the distance from Sun to Pluto.

Need to Develop a Proper Website

In the days of fast paced development, the need to develop a perfect marketing strategy to promote company92s products and services is absolutely necessary. A perfectly developed website is considered the best possible way to market and expand the business of an organization. However a website needs to be developed in accordance with set guidelines that best suit the company or a person92s requirement. Here are a few secret techniques or guidelines that can be followed to develop a website.

NVC Guidelines

NVC Guidelines stand for: Necessity, Visibility, and Curiosity

Necessity

These guidelines are prepared in keeping with the fact that the website will not only help the company to generate business, but also expand its customer base. These types of websites are a requirement for courier companies, travel/transport companies, manufacturing/export companies, and other businesses for whom such a website can help track shipments, make and collect payments online, conduct meetings.

Necessity Guidelines:

1. Huge domain space to manage database, information and other related matters.
2. Provision for making/receiving payments.
3. Best suited email and content management system
4. Correct and sustained information updates including latest news, developments.
5. Complete brochure of products and services.

Visibility

These guidelines are prepared for the websites that will not only help the company to generate business to some extent, but more so for increasing the visibility of the website, as such their online business opportunities, such as awareness about their services and reach out to people living in distant places. These types of websites are a requirement for schools, colleges, hospitals, charitable institutions, and others for whom website are used to increase their reach, bring transparency in transaction, and spread awareness.

Visibility Guidelines:

1. Appropriate domain space to manage database, information and other related matters, with provision for further enhancement in future as per requirement.
2. Provision for making/receiving payments.
3. Provision for maximum content.
4. Correct information updates.

Curiosity

These guidelines are prepared in keeping with the fact that the website may not only help the company to generate business, but also expand the customer base of the company. Websites dedicated towards advertising, sales and marketing help generate curiosity about a company92s products and services in the people who visit them. These types of websites do contain information about the company, but most of the times these websites either link up with other major websites or provide information about where these businesses are operating from.

A0Curiosity Guidelines:

1. Limited domain space for information and other related matters, with provision for further enhancement in future as per requirement.
2. Provision for appropriate content.
3. Information updates.
4. Proper Links.

A0Developing a Website

However its ideal to develop a simple or sophisticated website using HTML or PHP as that helps in customization. All that is needed is taking proper options, putting in appropriate site-related information, proper domain name and space. Softwares such asA0 SiteBuilder Elite with Automatic Options are ideally suited to help people develop numerous websites that can not only generate business for the website owner, but also boost the website ranking, mostly in Google. Some of the Automatic Options are:-

1. Standardized Adsense Adblocks.

2. Privacy Policy page and a Terms of Service (TOS) page.

3. Site Search page.

4. Home and Sitemap links in navigation bar.

5. RSS feed content on all pages.

6. Randomized title and description metatags to hide footprints from search engines.

7. Search Engine Optimized (SEO) with keyword in title, description and metatags.

8. Permalink at the bottom of each page to aid in SEO.

9. Randomly rotating images beside ads to draw the reader’s attention.

10. Ads from ad networks such as Amazon, ModernClick, PeakClick etc.

11. Own or PLR articles to add content to website.

12. Content from Yahoo Answers for website.

13. Specific articles on specific pages when needed.

14. Fixed homepage.

15. Home page turned into a landing page.

16. Contact Us page.

17. Videos from YouTube related to the subject of each webpage.

18. A resources page.

19. Header image or text header on website.

20. Change names, colors and sizes of fonts on the webpages.

21. Social Bookmarking links.

22. Articles page with RSS feeds from article directories

23. Cache pages for faster loading times.

24. Web 2.0 Videos.

25. Randomly update and auto-submission of sitemaps on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

26. Recommended products.

27. Option to add comments.

28. Auto hyperlinking of web addresses and site page interlinking.

29. Page translation widget.

30. “Develop Your Domain Names” link to website.

31. Google Analytics/Kontera/stats code for simple cut and paste operation.

Following all these automatic options and the NVC guidelines will help a website developer not just increase the page rank of the website developed by him, but also increase the revenue he gets from the website.

Facebook’s growth has been phenomenal as the world’s no. 1 social networking site with over 500 million users beating Google’s orkut to become the most visited website in the US. Though Mark Zukerberg once famously said ‘Soon there will be nothing private in social networking’ the website has also lately being receiving lot of flak for its privacy policies. With people sharing various kinds of information on social networking site like Facebook, feverish marketing campaigns can sometimes result in a compromise on an account holders' privacy.

1.    Sometimes what happens is that a website will issue an updated private profile stating that if someone connect with an application or website it will have access to general Information including friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared to be shared by “everyone.” Privacy settings allow viewers to see only what can be seen on profile. If one is uncomfortable in relation to be publicly known, one should not log into facebook.

2.    Another problem facing Facebook is the glitches, for example e-mail addresses that Facebook users wanted to keep hidden were revealed publicly on numerous Facebook profiles due to software glitches even though it was later resolved by Facebook.

3.    Facebook is prone to phishing scam and hacking with recent reports of a hacker in Russia trying to sell details of over 1.5 million profiles to the highest bidder.

4.    Facebook suffered a major security scare few months back when a software glitch allowed people to snoop on to their friends' private chats, and even view their pending friend requests. It forced Facebook to temporarily disable chat.

5.    Fake or multiple profiles are a serious problem affecting Facebook as many people either have multiple profiles and present themselves as different persons in each of them or they impersonate as famous personalities.

6.    An attack on Twitter last month affected hundreds of thousands of users when a "onmouseover" security flaw which took people to sites whether it was related or not by just putting their mouse over the link affected thousands of users. One of affected was the British prime minister's wife, Sarah Brown and visitors to her Twitter page were sent to a hardcore porn site in Japan.

7.    Problem is some users appeared to have use the flaws social networking sites for fun, but it invites cybercriminals to unleash more malicious and harmful attacks on networks and computer systems.

8.    Sometime back a new variation of Koobface virus that directs users to a fake YouTube page where they are encouraged to install malware has been the cause of major security concern.

9.    Applications  like 'Facebook - closing down!!!' and 'Error Check System' that were downloaded by users allowed cyber hackers to access to their profiles and personal information, and unwittingly forward fake messages to their friends, also encouraging them to download the programs.

10.    Facebook being people centric and dependent on user interaction is pro e to attacks by virus that don’t look malicious initially.

11.    Facebook application and third party applications are not vetted resulting in their unfettered release in the  social network public domain.

12.    Problem with Facebook logins are related to the Facebook page loading only partially or not at all while the second category contain problems related to the Facebook login itself.

13.    While the first category of problems is easy to fix by clearing the browser cache or trying to access Facebook with another web browser. Also login problems associated with Internet Service Provider also results in problems connecting to Facebook and can be solved by waiting some time and trying to access the page again.

14.    Another problem associated to the Facebook login is that the login to be successful, it’s a must to have a Facebook plug in application software installed for access which is not the case with Orkut or Twitter.