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Google has posted a short but interesting video to its Webmaster Central YouTube channel. A user asked the question, "How many bots/spiders does Google currently have crawling the web?" and Google’s Matt Cutts gave his answer.

"It’s important to realize that it’s not really actual robots or actual spiders out there…instead, it’s banks of machines …at Google’s data centers who open up an HTTP connection and request a page and then get it back," he says. "So any bank of machines (even 50 machines) could easily be requesting a bunch of different content."

"We try to refresh a large fraction of the web every few days," he adds. "So it turns out you really don’t need a ton of machines. Even a relatively small amount of machines operating in parallel and fetching pages in parallel can really be able to crawl of find new pages on the web in a very quick way."

Matt says that Google doesn’t give out the exact number, but that it’s somewhere between 25 and 1,000. I’m not sure what you can really do with that information, but it’s worth hearing a quick rundown of how it works for those who aren’t real familiar with how Google indexes content.

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Owners of e-readers such as the Kindle report they are happy with their devices according to a new study by The NPD Group.

The majority (93%) of owners said they were "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their device. Only 2 percent indicated any level of dissatisfaction.

Features are important to e-reader owners. More than half (60%) said wireless access was their favorite feature on their e-reader and nearly a quarter (23%) mentioned touch.

"Both the display technology and available content on e-Readers are optimized for those interested in books, said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis at NPD.

"Pairing these optimizations with wireless technology for transparent access and touch screens for easy navigation has resonated with the avid readers that have been early e-Reader adopters."

Even with great features, e-reader owners are still looking for more in these relatively new devices. Some recommended improvements from owners include more book title availability (42%), longer battery life (39%), and color screens (34%). Content is important, with 46 percent of owners saying they were most satisfied with the selection of titles for their e-readers while 39 percent said they could find every title they were looking for.

E-reader owners are not completely tied to their devices to do their reading. About three-in-ten say they use at least one other device for reading e-books, such as a PC or a smartphone.

"As we have seen with music, photos and video, books and other printed matter are slated to appear on a wide array of devices that offer tradeoffs in such factors as screen size and battery life," said Rubin.

"As the recent introduction of Apple’s iPad demonstrates, applications now on smartphones benefit from larger screens, and industry leaders are recognizing the importance of supporting multiple platforms by supporting multiple clients and open standards."
 

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The always outspoken Mark Cuban has contributed his thoughts on the whole news aggregation/Google News/publisher debate, one that is most often credited to Rupert Murdoch. It appears that Cuban has a similar opinion on the matter.

Cuban spoke at a keynote address this week at the AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC 2010 Conference, and is quoted by numerous sources as calling Google in particular a "vampire."

"When you think about vampires, they just suck on your blood," he is quoted as saying, reportedly telling newspapers and other publishers to "show some balls" and block Google News and, "There’s absolutely no reason for you guys to be indexed on Google News … if they don’t pay you."

Michael Arrington points out that at the TechCrunch50 conference in 2008, Cuban said he’d like to be an investor in TechMeme, which provides a similar service to Google News and other aggregators. In addition, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land notes (in great detail) that Cuban is an investor in Mahalo, which actually "touts to advertisers how it taps into Google to generate page views."

While on the topic of the news industry debates, the topic of charging for news is always a conversation starter. The Wall Street Journal has taken down its pay wall for the day, giving users access to articles that would otherwise require a subscription to access. The effort comes as the result of a sponsorship from Acura (Via SIA).
 

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Twitter initiated a password reset to a bunch of user accounts who were suddenly following a couple of suspicious accounts. These accounts were determined to be involved in phishing scams related to torrent sites.

"It appears that for a number of years, a person has been creating torrent sites that require a login and password as well as creating forums set up for torrent site usage and then selling these purportedly well-crafted sites and forums to other people innocently looking to start a download site of their very own," explains Twitter’s Director of Trust and Safety, Del Harvey. "However, these sites came with a little extra — security exploits and backdoors throughout the system.  This person then waited for the forums and sites to get popular and then used those exploits to get access to the username, email address, and password of every person who had signed up."

People commonly use the same password across multiple sites, which is essentially how they were able to get access to Twitter accounts, and why Twitter is reiterating a rule screamed by security experts for years: don’t use the same password for all of your accounts. 

"The takeaway from this is that people are continuing to use the same email address and password (or a variant) on multiple sites," says Harvey. "Through our discussions with affected users, we’ve discovered a high correlation between folks who have used third party forums and download sites and folks who were on our list of possibly affected accounts.  While not all users who were sent a password reset request fall into this category, we felt that it was important to put this knowledge out there so that users would know of the possibility of compromise of their data by a third party unrelated to their Twitter account."

Twitter is not considered as big of a security threat as Facebook by many companies according to a recent study, but that’s only because more people use Facebook. Any site that has a large userbase (and Twitter’s is growing), means there are likely more crooks and scammers too.

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The media sector performed well in 2009, recovering $200 billion of value, or 63 percent of what it lost in 2008, online content providers and distributors made up more than half of these gains, according to a new report by consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The largest gains were in China, where the media sector market value increased by 200 percent. The report indicates that the trend toward online media cannibalizing traditional platforms could push the industry toward a "zero-sum game" and increase the pressure on existing companies to sharpen online strategies.

Online video viewing minutes increased in 2009 by 50% in the U.S. and 30% in Spain, with TV shows and movies accounting for around half of these minutes. "These averages, however, mask the full extent of the change among the subset of the population that watches long-form content online," said Robert C. Fox, a Partner in Oliver Wyman’s Communications, Media, and Technology practice.

"In the U.S., for example, among those who watch long-form video online, 15% of their total long-form viewing is online and their linear TV and DVD viewing decreased in 2009. Similarly among all 18-34 year-olds, a key advertising demographic, all forms of viewing other than online and mobile dropped in 2009."

"The pace of growth in online-video viewing is striking," said Mr. Fox. "However, while the platform is still in its infancy, the behavior of today’s online population suggests that much of this growth will come at the expense of traditional platforms. Video could be headed for a zero-sum game," he added.
 

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Bing said today it has added new features to make it easier for users to search for and find financial information.

Bing says it has developed a "stock and funds pages" which covers most U.S. stocks and funds.

The Bing Search Blog offers more details. "To see the stocks and funds you are interested in simply enter a ticker in the search box e.g MSFT. Note our ‘Instant Answer’ on top which provides basic data about the firm. If you click on the "Investor Data" tab on the left you go into our finance page."

"The finance page gives you detailed information about key finance metrics of the firm. It also shows an easy to digest summary of the main analyst covering the stock.  A personal favorite of mine are the lists on the left, which allow you to easily navigate to similar stocks or other leading stocks in the industry."

Bing says it plans to add new information and functionality to its stocks and found pages in the future.
 

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Internet use by both business and leisure guests at hotels increased more than 50 percent in 2009, according to a new report by iBAHN, an Internet service provider for 2,200 hotels globally.

Hotel guests spent 60 percent more time online and downloaded 50 percent more data, based on tracked packet and session length information. This confirms the predictions from an iBAHN- commissioned, 2009 study of business travelers conducted by Ypartnership.

Ypartnership found more than two-thirds of frequent business travelers have downloaded music onto their computers (67%) while nearly 60 percent have downloaded video. More than half have downloaded news (54%) or entertainment (52%). Downloads of video and music consume considerably higher bandwidth and data than the average email or browsing session.

"The implication of this trend for hoteliers is profound as it clearly points to the conclusion that the "free to guest" model of providing free access in all locations of the hotel at all times to all guests is economically unrealistic given guests’ differing bandwidth needs," iBAHN said.

"Because costs for bandwidth continue to increase exponentially, hoteliers will continue to see higher overall expenses related to their broadband offering, without commensurate benefits in either daily rates or occupancy."

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We’re sure you’ve either seen or heard about “General” Larry Platt’s American Idol audition, Pants On The Ground. Not sure how you could’ve missed it, as it’s been everywhere… it was even sung by the Minnesota Vikings after they defeated the Dallas Cowboys during the NFL playoffs.

Pants On The Ground has been viewed well over 2 million times on YouTube and Platt has even performed his “hit song” on the morning talk show “The View”.

But, is all the publicity Platt receiving justified? Let us know what you think.

Michigan based hip-hop duo, the Green Brothers, have posted a video on YouTube entitled "Back Pockets On The Floor"  that has a striking resemblance to Platt’s viral hit. The Green Brothers song was copyrighted and recorded in 1996, 14 years before Platt graced the audition stage of American Idol. 

The following description accompanies the video on YouTube…

This is in regards to the General Larry Platt "Pants on The Ground". His song is a take off of the Green Brothers song " Back Pockets On The Floor’. Back Pockets On The Floor was written by G. Green and was copyrighted and recorded by the Green Brothers in 1996. The General’s song have the same intent, idea and in part the same message. YOU BE THE JUDGE AMERICA!!

It should be noted Gerald Green, a member of the hip-hop duo, holds no grudge against Platt and even "wishes him well".

So, what do you think: Did Larry Platt rip-off "Back Pockets On The Floor"? Tell us what you think.

Toy maker Mattel said today it is set to roll out a new product in the fall called "Puppy Tweets" that will allow dogs to send tweets to their own Twitter account.

Puppy Tweets is a plastic tag with a sound and motion sensor that attaches to a dog collar and connects to a USB receiver in a computer. The pet owner creates a Twitter account for the dog and then can receive tweets on a smartphone or desktop.

The tag features a number of pre-recorded tweets that are activated by a dog’s activities. If the dog is running around a tweet might read, "I finally caught that tail I’ve been chasing and OOUUCHH!" Everyone knows that if dogs could tweet that’s how they would sound.

If the dog is resting it will tweet "Somedays it feels like my paw is permanently on the snooze button!" If the dog is barking it will tweet "Yahoooooo! Somedays you just gotta get your bark on."

"Puppy Tweets capitalizes on two popular trends – the use of social media and real time communication, as well as peoples’ extreme love for their dogs," said Susan Russo, Mattel’s director of marketing.

Puppy Tweets will be available at retailers in the fall for $29.99. No word yet if there will be a similar product for cats or if Puppy Tweets can alert dog owners if their pet is having an accident on the carpet.

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For some time now, a sort of "Google vs. Everybody" situation has been developing in Germany.  The bad news for the search giant is that, as four online marketing agencies have prepared to team up, the situation’s continuing to take shape, and the European Commission is fine with it.

G + J Electronic Media Service, IP Deutschland, SevenOne Media, and Tomorrow Focus Portal intend to work together in the realm of online display advertising.  A statement issued today explained that they will "develop and sell a new product to allow advertisers to reach better defined target groups of Internet users whose profiles would be created based on anonymous data collected throughout a large network of participating websites."

Individually, these organizations all appear to be rather important and at least fairly successful.  Together, they should represent quite a force.

So here’s the extra-noteworthy part: the statement later added, "The Commission concluded that the proposed concentration was unlikely to raise competition concerns given the parties’ low market shares in online advertising and the presence of strong competitors like Google."

We’ll try to keep an eye on how this joint project proceeds.  Meanwhile, a big hat tip goes to Robert Andrews.

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