TECH CHRONICLES / A daily dose of postings from The Chronicle's technology blog (sfgate.com/blogs/tech)

sfgate_get_fprefs();
Facebook executive director graduating to VC firm

Matt Cohler, one of Facebook's earlier hires, is leaving the Palo Alto social-networking startup for a occupation at a Silicon Valley venture working capital firm.

Facebook made the proclamation Thursday. Cohler, frailty president of merchandise direction at Facebook, will autumn in Benchmark Capital as a general spouse in the fall. But he'll remain in touching with Facebook as a particular advisor to Facebook laminitis and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg and the senior direction team.

The 31-year-old executive already have A jammed resume: He was a initiation member of LinkedIn, the Mountain Position societal web recently valued at $1 billion; served as a adviser for McKinsey; and worked in Peking at AsiaInfo Holdings Inc., a telecom company that helped construct China's Internet infrastructure.

Said Zuckerberg in a statement: Cohler "has been an of import subscriber to Facebook's growing and success."

- Ellen Lee
GM, museums among robo-cars' admirers

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which most famously sponsored the early research behind the Internet, have lit a fire under robotics in recent old age by sponsoring a series of driverless auto races meant to develop crash-avoidance sensors and software.

Now, two of DARPA's title-holder robo-cars are back in the news. General Motors Corp. said Thursday that it will put $5 million in a five-year joint research undertaking with Dale Carnegie Andrew Mellon University, whose "Boss" robo-car won a race held last twelvemonth in a citylike setting.

"Imagine being virtually chauffeured in your auto while doing your e-mail, eating breakfast and watching the news," gram Frailty President for Research Larry George Burns said in a statement. "The work we're doing with Dale Carnegie Andrew Mellon is a large stepping rock toward making this a reality."

Stanford University's "Stanley" - the robo-car that South Korean won a 2005 dash across the Mohave Desert - is making a monthlong cavity halt at the Technical School Museum of Invention in San Jose before going on show at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Stanley, a Volkswagen guided by self-driving software developed at Stanford, just returned from a planetary triumph lap that took it to Singapore, Johannesburg and Munich. Until July 17, it will be strutting its stuff, for free, at San Jose's Technical School before being sent to rest on its award at the newly renovated Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

- Uncle Tom Abate
ITunes atop the human race of music retailing

Earlier this year, iTues leapfrogged into the No. One place as the nation's top music retailer, surpassing even Wal-Mart, according to NPD. The iTunes Shop offers more than than 8 million songs for sale online.

Apple, the Cupertino shaper of the iPod and iPhone, also said it is renting or merchandising 50,000 movies per day.

- Ellen Lee
HP to consolidate its printing businesses

Print 2.0, Hewlett-Packard's transmutation of its printing business, continues. The company said it is consolidating five of its printing groupings into three units of measurement with an oculus toward streamlining the concern around certain key client segments.

The move affects foldable HP's stores grouping into the remaining units of measurement and combining the endeavor grouping with the ink jet plane unit. That assists horsepower focusing on three markets: consumers and little businesses, enterprise, and commercial printing and graphics.

HP said the reorganisation was not aimed at eliminating jobs. There will be a rebalancing of resources to suit the changes, the company said.

HP have been remaking its black and white concern over the last twelvemonth since it announced its Print 2.0 strategy. It's moving away from being just a shaper of pressmen to being a printing company that supplies a assortment of hardware and solutions for all kinds of customers.

One of the big countries of growth, which this reorg addresses, is the chance in large graphical and commercial printing jobs, such as as signs, hoardings and publications. horsepower have said that the small-scale printing it's been known for in the past brands up lone 15 percentage of the millions of pages printed each year.

- Ryan Kim

10 technologies that will disrupt - NetworkWorld.com

Social networking technologies, Web mashups, multi-core and crossed processors, and cloud computer science are amongst the 10 most
riotous engineerings that volition form the IT landscape over the adjacent five years, according to research house Gartner.

Google gets serious about social networking in China - maybe - BloggingStocks

Posted April 15th 2008 4:45PM by Filed under: , , (NASDAQ: ) goes on to dial up its attempts in the Chinese market. Having increased its place against the country's prima hunt engine, (NASDAQ: ), it is now looking to rapidly spread out its presence in China's societal networking community. Although Google's attempts in societal networking really have got not paid off in the U.S., that's not the narrative in China.Part human race and portion competitory trap (perhaps), Google is making the world believe that societal networking is mature for enlargement in China. At the same time, China's authorities desires to guarantee all these communication theory are kept under control (it's a Communist country, right?), which would do one think this: how on Earth can any company convey societal networking to a marketplace ruled by an Fe clenched fist when it come ups to communications?Kai Fu-Lee, the former (NASDAQ: ) employee who recently under intense scrutiny, bespeaks that the typical Chinese cyberspace user is 25 old age old -- making the marketplace perfect for increasing marketplace consciousness and share of societal networking efforts. But Baidu may be used more than often by children looking for pirated audio and picture content more than anything else -- not for "talking and socializing with friends" as societal networking is typically described. Are Google really wanting a piece of that, or is it trying to torpedo competitors? Hey, the world's biggest cyberspace hunt company did not get where it is today by being stupid.

How to make money online

Fifteen billion smackers: That's the value Microsoft recently slapped on Facebook when the computing machine giant invested $240 million for a 1.6 per cent interest in Mark Zuckerberg's online social-networking site.

Editor's Choice

You could seethe with envy--or you could chase after your ain luck on the web.

Some online concerns necessitate only a few hundred dollars in equipment, while others demand important hardware and perhaps even a warehouse. Some mightiness do you rich; others might just cover suds money. And all affect assorted degrees of time, working capital and technological skill.

"Some people have got got dreamed about owning their ain concern and have not followed through because of the investing in resources," states Jim Griffith, caput of eBay University, for those aiming to put up store merchandising commodity at the online auctioneer's site. "The cyberspace lets people to at least attempt without making a big initial investment."

Army veteran soldier Brandi Ramos of Springfield, Ill., did it. As a single ma in demand of other income, she started her online retail calling vending "big and tall" men's clothes on eBay.

Three old age later, Ramos, 32, do a good life workings online out of her 600-square-foot cellar packed with hanging shows and baker's racks piled with tupperware containing underclothes and belts. Ramos takes to offer speedy service, answering all e-mails within four to six hours. She claims to nett $25,000 on $100,000 gross sales a year, and even gains a few vaulting horses per order on shipping.

If managing stock list looks too large a chore, drama practical landlord and complaint other retail merchants monthly fees (or per-transaction fees) for the chance to marketplace their merchandises on your site. Amazon.com nabbed 28 per cent of its grosses this manner in 2006.

Craigslist is another return on this model: The 25-person company, deserving a reported $2 billion, complaints concerns to post aid wanted advertisements in San Francisco, New House Of House Of York and L.A.; it also accumulates fees for flat lists in New York City. Sum page positions per month: about 5 billion.

Then there's every pajama-clad blogger's dream: producing content supported by advertisement dollars. Selling advertisement is how one thousands of constituted online mass media mercantile establishments pay their electrical bills. They bear down advertizers two ways: by the figure of overall web pages (called "impressions") served up, and by the figure of people who chink on the ads. Setting up a blog necessitates not much more than than a basic publication program, a waiter and software system to track advertisement clicks. The difficult part, though, is attracting adequate orbs to do it deserving someone's piece to pay to publicize on your site.

To have got any supplication of attracting big advertisers, land sites necessitate to pull at least 500,000 alone visitants per month, states Saint David Hauslaib, publishing house of Jossip.com, A mass media and chitchat blog that counts Erythroxylon Coca Genus Cola and Sketchers among its advertisers. Sadly, even if you make bring forth adequate traffic, the "click-through" rates on advertisements be given to be quite low--in the vicinity of one one-half of 1 per cent.

Subscription-based exemplaries are even harder to crack. Unless your land site fulfills an pressing demand (for tangible investing ideas, a possible mate, etc.), users aren't likely to pay for the content.

One manner to earn subscription gross is to run a practical marketplace. These land sites accumulate by allowing purchasers and Sellers easy entree to each other. Many of these markets flamed out in the dot-com bust, but some persist. Mfg.com, for instance, fits equipment makers with littler constituent suppliers. Dating land sites like Match.com complaint subscription fees for entree to their members. And H2Bid.com golf course municipalities with wastewater-equipment vendors.

As with tangible existent estate, you can purchase practical secret plans (URL addresses), impudent them and do a buck. GoDaddy.com sells fresh sphere name calling for under $10 dollars apiece. To pull buyers, tally diagnostic tests to find how often certain key words are searched so that you can demo the likeliness that your uniform resource locator will show up in a Google or Yahoo! search. One tip: The best sphere name calling are short, sweet, specific and easy to remember.

As cyberspace use grows, so too will the edification of online concern models. Take 3-year-old Yoonew.com, which sells hereafters contracts on athletics tickets.

Fans purchase the right to take bringing of tickets if their squads do it to a desired playoff game, perhaps calendar months away. Given the uncertainness of the bet, those contracts sell for a fraction of the hereafter marketplace value of the implicit in tickets. If your squad do it to the large game, you've locked in a inexpensive seat; if it falls short, you lose that coverage premium.

Yoonew do money when the gross it accumulates from merchandising all those contracts transcends the cost of delivering a little figure of very expensive tickets on game days. The danger: If ticket terms spike, or there are no seating available, the company could endure a loss or estrange its customers.

Sure, you can do money online. But no 1 said it was easy.

How Is Social Networking Changing the Face of Internet Marketing?

One of the top usages of societal networking websites is how they seek to change the manner Internet selling is being done. Internet marketing, by nature, intends advertisement your concern through the Internet. These may be in the word form of article marketing, nexus building, hunt engines, and, of course, societal networking.

Why Sociable Networks Are Ideal for Businesses

Majority of these societal networking websites make not inquire for any complaints upon membership. Thus, it allows people to acquire connected at the last cost possible. This presents well for small-time businesspersons and budding enterprisers who don't have got much working capital for investing but desire to increase their concern takes and client base. The societal networking websites work as the company's tool for human relationship management. Firms who are selling merchandises and services can also print streamers and textual matter advertisements all over the societal web websites. Because their range is practically global, companies can attain out to their other clients who are located in other parts of the world.

These societal networking websites, which are also acting as semi-business networking sites, are following the customary face-to-face networking rules of concern networkers who belong in different fields. Businesses and clients who dwell in different parts of the human race may come up together in one country and they can all together share their sentiments and ideas, the benefits of which can be mutual.

Why Sociable Networking Websites Are Ideal for Customers

You may probably are aware of how the Internet can go a very powerful manner of communication. Normally, before they begin buying or arch any service or product, they usually run to treatment groupings and blogs to acquire just sentiment from people who have got first-hand experience of the merchandise and services. They are relying on different sorts of merchandise or service reappraisal before they eventually do a purchase. They can happen people who share similar involvements and belonging to similar industries.

Authors and Small Business Owners - Three Tips for Marketing on MySpace

If you're an writer or a little concern owner, you'll desire to make a page at MySpace.com to web with other authors, publishers, editors, other little concern owners, and prospective clients and customers. Here are three full general tips for creating a MySpace.com page for professional networking:

1. Avoid overloading your land site with too many sound and picture files. When you upload respective picture and audio data files to your page, it takes so long to lade that many people won't trouble oneself to lodge around until your page have fulled loaded. Also, sometimes all these data files will make visitants to acquire bumped off your page before it ever fully loads, and you sure don't desire that.

2. Visit your MySpace.com page often. Each clip you see your land land site your page allows people cognize the last clip you logged on to your site. Visitors are less likely to read the information on your page, or direct you a friend request, if they detect you haven't logged on in respective hebdomads or months.

3. Once you've made friends on MySpace.com, you have got the option each twenty-four hours of sending bulletins to everyone on your friends' list. These bulletins are a great manner to acquire the word out about your up-to-the-minute book, product, or other offering. But don't overdo it on the day-to-day bulletins and pig the full bulletin board. People who are on your friends' listing won't even detect or read your bulletins if you post something every one-half hr (and some people make this, believe it or not). Also, avoid typing the newspaper headlines for your bulletins all in caps. This is considered shouting at the reader, and no 1 desires to be screamed at.

Follow these three simple tips and bask making MySpace.com A large portion of your selling and networking plan.