In what might be an eye-opener to just how dependent humanity has become to the internet, a new report says that the average person now spends about 13hours on the internet.

Conducted by Harris Interactive, the survey which centered on internet users revealed that the average person spends about an hour and half per day on the computer, while one in 5 spends about only about an hour. About 14% however were online more 24 hours a week, which is tantamount to a full day.

Whether that time was wasted depends solely on the person but it gives you a good idea on just how much time people are spending online nowadays.

Well this is interesting... I guess I must've skipped earlier reports that Google and Facebook were both trying to get into the URL shortening business, and for good reason. You see most of these URL shorteners direct you to places outside of the site and some of those could be malicious.

Perhaps, this is the reason why Google and Facebook have come up of their own. Take YouTube's own URL shortener for example, YouTu.be, it only redirects you to YouTube video which means that you can rest easy when you see that URL because it's safe. It's also because of the world's sudden need for short URL's to be used for Tweeting.

Makes you wonder why Twitter wont make one...

On hindsight though, when people start becoming comfortable with these kinds of features, it might eventually spell the decline of leading websites such as Bit.Ly and TinyURL because these sites can be utilized by virtually to promote something and lead people to sites that are totally different.

I'll consider this a sign that end times is near. Porn sites like Penthouse.com, Hustler.com and RedTube.com are allegedly on their way to being blocked by Australian internet authorities^FTW! due to a mandatory ISP filtering scheme. Well, I guess it's back to the good 'ol magazines under the bed for most people in Australia soon.

Whoever thought Google had the biggest hand in search may actually think twice as to how fragile the search market is. While Google did gain ground in 2009, the search giant lost some .07% to settle at 64%. (Nielsen) Yahoo meanwhile slipped 0.5% to slip down to 15.3% according to ComScore.

The relative decline can be attributed a MSN's new search venture Bing, which has eaten up a not-so-significant but nonetheless valuable piece of the search pie. Nielsen puts the site at 1% market share.

This may be indicative that the market is poised for the entry of a new search competitor. I know I'm not always satisfied with what Google (much more Yahoo) gives me and Bing had always felt like the go-to site for everything non-marketing, if you know what I mean.

'MySpace' has been toppled for 2009 as the social network 'Facebook' became the reigning champion in search. The is a huge increase from 2008 when it was the tenth most searched word on the web while MySpace, which was last year's #1, fell down to number 2. This is a telling situation in the world of social networking as Facebook seemed to cover a lot of ground because of its features (apps and all).

Following the list was "craigslist," "youtube," "yahoo mail," "google," "yahoo," "ebay," "facebook login," and "myspace.com." Porn was at the 16th spot.

Previously, only Google's Streetview feature has existed on the web -- both praised and criticized but is nonetheless helpful for those like me who hate uncertainty. Now AOL's Mapquest is joining the fray launching a similar feature called "360 View", now offered in 30 cities and 13 suburbs across United States.



All of it's pretty similar to Google Maps although Map Quest does offer extra features such as gas prices, traffic, and others that the traveler might need (why else would you drop by in the first place). My brother likes MapQuest already so I think they're gonna get worthy appreciation from him.

Web 2.0 was rocked this week with the launch of music video streaming site Vevo which is almost like the emo daughter of MTV and Hulu. MTV is already not playing enough music videos as much as, IDK, Jersey Shore; and Hulu has only been for movies and tv episodes.



Vevo comes to attract what seems to be an untapped market (or rather, an "uncapitalized" market) focusing on music videos with content partnerships with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, AT&T, and CBS Interactive Music Group, currently offering some 14,500 videos from 5,000-plus artists in over 20 genres. It also has a YouTube channel.