Facebook to show users less unwanted ads in newsfeed - InfoGeeks

San Francisco - Facebook newsfeeds will contain fewer ads for products or services that users are not interested in, Facebook Inc said on Friday, announcing changes in advertising policy.

It was the Web company's latest effort to refine the newsfeed ads that have become more important to its business.

"When deciding which ad to show to which groups of people, we are placing more emphasis on feedback we receive from people about ads, including how often people report or hide an ad," Facebook said.

"If someone always hides ads for electronics, we will reduce the number of those types of ads that we show to them," the company said.

Facebook has been trying to make ads more prominent without triggering a backlash among its 1.15 billion users.

The world's No.1 online social network, which generates roughly 85 percent of its revenue from advertising, now injects one paid ad into every 20 "stories" users see in their newsfeeds, the company said in July.

While big brands such as Toyota and AT&T advertise on Facebook, the company also makes money from marketers of weight-loss and teeth-whitening products. Analysts say some users may not welcome these less-glamorous pitches in their newsfeed.

Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott said Facebook needs to take steps to keep the latter category of ads in the less intrusive, right-hand side of the Web page, while reserving the space within users' newsfeed for higher-quality ads.

"If Facebook allows unappealing advertising to invade that space then they're in trouble. That harms the user experience, and reduces the value of that inventory for high-quality marketers," Elliott said.

Facebook said some marketers "may see some variation in the distribution of their ads" in coming weeks. The company did not elaborate.

Shares of Facebook finished Friday's regular trading session up 1.7 percent at $51.24, the highest closing level since the company went public in May 2012.

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Ballmer goes out punching at last Microsoft employee meeting - InfoGeeks

Ballmer goes out punching at last Microsoft employee meeting

Description:

Seattle - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer took his farewell bow before thousands of applauding employees on Thursday with a typically loud and emotional performance at his last companywide meeting, talking up the software giant's prospects and taking swipes at rivals.

The CEO, whose screeching and dancing at company events is the stuff of YouTube legend, stormed the stage to "Can't Hold Us" by Seattle rap/producer duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and kept up his usual high tempo, according to several people present at the employee-only meeting.

He departed to the strains of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," the song played at Microsoft's first employee meeting in 1983, followed by "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from the finale of "Dirty Dancing," getting a standing ovation from the 13,000 or so Microsoft full-time employees in attendance.

 

"We have unbelievable potential in front of us, we have an unbelievable destiny,"

said a visibly moved Ballmer, reusing a quote from the 1983 meeting. "Only our company and a handful of others are poised to write the future," he continued. "We're going to think big, we're going to bet big."

Ballmer, who announced his plan to retire within 12 months in August, was the last act of the all-day event at Seattle's KeyArena, former home of the city's SuperSonics basketball team.

Thousands of full-time Microsoft employees showed up, most of them bussed in from Microsoft's campus on the east side of Lake Washington - while an estimated 25,000 more tuned in via webcast.

The event is an annual traffic nightmare for Seattle, with 220 buses making the 15-mile journey from Microsoft's campus in Redmond to the center of the city.

During his time on stage, Ballmer talked about telling his parents about deciding to drop out of Stanford's business school to join Microsoft on 1980, recalling that his father - a long-time Ford Motor Co executive - asked him what a personal computer was.

He dwelled on his new plan to transform the company from a software-centric operation into a more innovative devices and services company, which he said would make it "fundamentally more powerful."

He also took a swipe at rivals, declaring that Apple is about being "fashionable," Amazon.com is about being "cheap," Google is about "knowing more," but Microsoft is about "doing more."

Microsoft has a bright future, Ballmer said, echoing his theme from last week's meeting with Wall Street analysts.

"I believe in you, I believe in the mission," he told employees, choking up slightly."We've been a great company for years. We will be a great company for many more years."

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At 15, Google revisits past, eyes future - InfoGeeks

At 15, Google revisits past, eyes future

Description:

San Francisco - Google celebrated its 15th birthday Thursday with a trip down memory lane, and an update to the search engine formula which helped spawn the tech giant.

The company took journalists on a tour of where it all started - Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, California, where Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on Google in 1998. Wojcicki is currently a Google vice president.

A Google+ page meanwhile included a photo album of the original home search page, and collected dozens of birthday wishes.

But Google, which has grown into one of the world's biggest companies, was not content to just look at the past. It announced an upgrade to its main search engine, referred to as 'Hummingbird' with new ways to integrate its use across different devices.

Since 1998, the tech world has changed dramatically and Google said its search engine has been constantly improved.

“The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket,” said Google Search chief Amit Singhal in a blog post.

‘Hummingbird’

Google has quietly retooled the closely guarded formula running its Internet search engine to give better answers to the increasingly complex questions posed by Web surfers.

“It's cleaner and simpler, optimized for touch, with results clustered on cards so you can focus on the answers you're looking for,” said Danny Sullivan of the tech blog Search Engine Land, about the upgrade of the main search engine. "Hummingbird is especially designed to handle complex queries."

The changes could have a major impact on traffic to websites. Hummingbird represents the most dramatic alteration to its search engine since it revised the way it indexes websites three years ago as part of a redesign called ''Caffeine,'' according to Amit Singhal, a company vice president. He estimated that the redesign would affect about 90 percent of the search requests Google gets, thereby changing Any reshuffling of Google's search rankings can have sweeping ramifications because they steer so much of the Internet's traffic.

Nawaz meets Bill Gates on sidelines of UNGA - InfoGeeks

Nawaz meets Bill Gates on sidelines of UNGA

NEW YORK: Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif held a meeting with Bill Gates, co-chair and founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the sideline of the 68th session of the United nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

During the meeting, the premiere appreciated Mr Gate's continued interest in and support for polio eradication in Pakistan.

The Prime Minister informed Mr Gates that his government had redoubled its efforts to ensure effective implementation of the National Emergency Action Plan to completely eradicate polio in Pakistan.

Mr Gates praised efforts made by Pakistan over the past two years for eradicating the crippling disease disease from the country.

He recognised government's commitment to reach all Pakistani children with Polio vaccine for the eradication of this debilitating disease.

The Prime Minister also shared with Mr Bill Gates his government's vision on science and technology promotion.

In this regard, the Prime Minister highlighted the importance of IT and telecommunication sector, especially its job creation potential for the youth of Pakistan.

Mr Sharif said that his government was committed to increase IT-related exports, introducing e-government framework and establishing technology parks.

Bill Gates thanked the Pakistani premier for sharing his vision on further strengthening Pakistans IT and Telecommunication sector.

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