People search engine 123people is allowed to use pictures in its people search that are freely available on the Internet. A Hamburg court rejected a complaint in which the search engine was accused of illegally using the picture of a woman, who had not expressly allowed its use. “If the person shown in the picture did not block it from access by search engines and if the website is search engine optimized, it can be assumed that assent for publication through 123people has been given”, the court said. The picture shown by 123people originated in a company homepage, for which the plaintiff had given permission. By extension, it was reasonable that search engines used it as well, the court said. The decision is a great success for social media platforms in Germany and could lead to similar judgments in other European countries. Since March 2010, 123people belongs to the PagesJaunes Group. (Source: www.internetworld.de)

The award winning mobile application adaffix (www.adaffix.com) announces its launch in Belgium today. adaffix enriches the call experience by adding relevant content to calls in real-time. The innovative application automatically displays the caller name if the caller is not in the user’s contacts list. It also instantly suggests businesses nearby if the user cannot reach a business on the phone. adaffix accesses the necessary data to deliver such information through a real-time search in international directory databases.

Seat Pagine Gialle announced a partnership with Vivaticket, a company specialised in managing ticketing and pre-sales for quality cultural and entertainment events. Thanks to the agreement with Vivaticket, the 89.24.24 Pronto PagineGialle telephone service is expanding its offer to users, who will be able to purchase tickets for all the events managed by Vivaticket simply by making a call to the Seat PG service and making the purchase following a step-by-step guide by a Personal Assistant. A personal credit card can be conveniently used to pay for the service.

Facebook said on Wednesday that it now had 500 million members. Just one year ago it had half that number. Every month, Facebook says, more than 30 billion photographs, links to Web sites and news articles are shared through the site. It is estimated that Facebook is adding 50 million new members each month. (Source: New York Times)

The measurement company Nielsen says that by overly focusing on age groups such as 18-to-34 and 18- to-49 year-olds, "advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power." There are an estimated 78 million baby boomers (people born in the immediate post-war years) in the USA, where the oldest are about 64 and the youngest around 46. These are about to grow out of the preferred age groups. Nielsen says ad dollars spent looking to reach the 35-to-64 age group are estimated at less than 5% of the overall pie. Even as ad dollars perhaps stray from them, Nielsen says boomers account for 39% of dollars spent on consumer packaged goods -- and they spend more in 1,023 of the 1,083 categories in the segment. (Source: Media Daily News)

The big media-buying group ZenithOptimedia has raised its worldwide advertising growth estimate again -- this time it estimates an increase of 3.5% in 2010 over the year before. ZenithOptimedia says strong growth in North America and Europe, as well as higher revenues from Internet, mobile and social media, is driving its estimates higher. Zenith says 2010 is estimated to hit $448 billion. This is the third time ZenithOptimedia has pushed up its numbers. The most recent growth rate was estimated at 2.2%. There is better news for 2011, where global ad spending is expected to climb 4.5% from a 4.1% previous estimate.Later years will see even better growth rates; 2012 will see 5.3% growth.

Twitter is trying to make watching ads as unobtrusive as possible. Last week, Twitter launched separate Twitter feed called @Earlybird with special deals from sponsors. For example, for a limited Time @Earlybird followers in the USA can get cheaper tickets for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” a new feature film from Walt Disney Pictures. AdAge describes @Earlybird as a "promotion for marketers with a product or service with a limited shelf life where word has to be disseminated quickly." One can imagine that the service would work in a number of other areas, where being new counts, such as music, books, etc. Disney had used Twitter before for advertising Toy Story 3. Unfortunately the reviews for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” were terrible, so it remains to be seen, if that will impact the launch or not. (Source: AdAge, Twitter)

Telnic Limited (http://telnic.tel), the Registry Operator for the communications-focused .tel top level domain (TLD), announced that it has hired former Yell.com Head of Marketing Ian Bowen-Morris as Chief Marketing Officer. "We're delighted that Ian has joined Telnic at the stage when the benefits and services that a .tel can deliver to individual professionals and small businesses are really coming into their own," said Khashayar Mahdavi, CEO at Telnic Limited. "Ian's experience of and participation in the directory services industry will help Telnic strengthen its relationship with this important emerging channel."

Although prominent politicians are courting Facebook, Facebook itself has no intention to bend to the will of politicians. Last week Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and British Prim Minister David Cameron had a cosy video chat. A few days later, a Facebook page appeared, that expressed sympathy for the murderer Raoul Moat, who shot himself after one of the largest manhunts in recent years in Britain. In the UK Parliament, questions were being asked, suggesting that Cameron should demand the removal of such a page from Facebook. The Prime Minister’s press officer later reportedly followed up by suggesting that the UK government would in fact ask Facebook to remove the ‘offending’ page. Facebook replied by pointing out that as long as a posting does not violate any laws it would stand – and offending sensibilities of victims or politicians is not against the law. (Source: TechCrunch)

Digital offerings, such as online Yellow Pages, video, SEM/SEO, mobile, social and reputation management, will account for 39 percent of global Yellow Pages revenues by 2014, according to the mid-year update to BIA/Kelsey’s Annual Global Yellow Pages Forecast (2009-2014). The anticipated growth in digital offerings will be a focus of the agenda at BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming Directional Media Strategies 2010 (DMS ’10: Yellow Pages and Beyond) conference (www.kelseygroup.com/dms2010), which takes place Sept. 14-16 in Dallas.