Seven years ago, AgendiZe was giving birth to its first Engagement Platform. Since then, they have been registering more than 35 million Monthly Unique Visitors and empowering over 2 million advertisers with its suite of Engagement features. To celebrate this successful adventure, AgendiZe decided to treat itself with a new company logo, which symbolizes the idea of a "one-stop-shop" for all Engagement Tools. In its newsletter, AgendiZe introduces its latest deployments in South Africa, Central America and Asia; talks about the importance of Online Scheduling today and showcases its  recent deployments with its Lead Optimizer Pack.

After Google decided to re-direct queries from mainland China to its Hong Kong, in order not to have to censor its site, Google’s chief legal officer said that Chinese government officials had made clear that the redirect was “unacceptable – and that if we continue redirecting users, our internet content provider licence will not be renewed (after expiry on June 30). This would mean that Google would loose access to the world’s largest Internet population at more than 400m, in a market that still has enormous potential for growth. Google can probably not expect much help from the US government, because Washington sees this as a fight between Google and China. (Source; Financial Times)

Although it was said that the iPhone 4 had some early teething problems, Apple managed to sell1.7millio of the devices in just three days. But even that was not fast enough for some analysts, who had predicted predicted Apple selling 1.5 million iPhone 4's on day one. It took Apple 72 days to sell 1 million of the first iPhone in 2007, and in 2008 after three days “only” one million of the iPhone 3Gwere sold. iPads, on the other hand, took 28 days to reach the million mark.

GoYellow Media AG announced that it has changed its name to 118000 AG. This name change is intended to enhance the profile of the new 118000 brand in the financial markets and among the general public. “We expect the 118000 switchboard service for Germany to make up the majority of our revenue in the coming years. We have renamed the holding company to draw wide-scale attention to the new business as quickly as possible,” said Dr. Klaus Harisch, CEO of the company. The company's Annual General Meeting approved the name change on 19 May 2010.
 
As incidences of data abuse rise, the telephone switchboard for Germany offers tremendous value to anyone making calls for business or personal reasons. Consumers who want to protect their contact details and not publish them on the Internet or in printed directories can now register at www.118000.de. In the secure 118000 database, they can store the phone numbers under which they would like to be reached. Even the 118000 call center staff, who put calls through like a switchboard, cannot see these numbers. The staff members contact the requested subscribers and let them know who wants to speak with them and for what reason. If the subscriber is willing to accept the call, a connection is made.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network is looking to expands its network to China, Russia and Japan by taking on the competition there. After growing organically to almost 500 million members, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO said that the company would soon make its first strategic moves. Mr. Zuckerberg said that there are only four countries where Facebook is not the leading social network - Japan, Russia, China and South Korea (presumably there are no social networks at all in North Korea) but he will face some large, established competitors in Asian markets, including Japan’s Mixi, Tencent QQ in China and Vkontakte in Russia. (Source: Financial Times)

Much has been made of Google’s lax privacy policy, but Apple does not seem to be much better. Media Online Daily quotes the Los Angeles times and others saying that Apple is now reportedly collecting the "precise, real-time geographic location" of iPhone, iPad and even computer users. 
To cover its back, the company added a paragraph to its privacy policy noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified 'partners and licensees' may collect and store user location data.  However, all iPhone users who want to download applications or media via the iTunes Store are forced to agree to the policy.  Otherwise they are blocked from downloading anything, so it really isn't an option. The company insists that the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users. (Source: Media Online Daily)

Google’s problems about gathering data from unsecured wi-fi networks when creating data for its street-view programme are growing. In the USA, a "significant number" of U.S. states will be conducting an investigation, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said on Monday. Blumenthal said that "more than 30 states" participated in a recent conference call held to discuss the Google investigation. In France the French data protection agency CNIL, is now considering prosecuting the search firm for the same offense. The CNIL chairman said Google handed the data to the agency on June 4 following an official request, and it was now in the process of combing through the data. CNIL said that an early look showed the presence of "data that are normally covered by... banking and medical privacy rules." Google, for its part, said it was working with French authorities, among others, and would delete the information it had gathered upon request. (Source: Online Media Daily)

Twitter has launched its first promoted trending topic, as a further source of revenue. According to Computerworld, Promoted Trends are highlighted on user pages as a supplementary addition below the top 10 current trends. Twitter has confirmed that topics can only become promoted if they are already being actively discussed in the Twitter community. The first topic to receive the Promoted Trend treatment is Disney-Pixar's new animated film Toy Story 3, released in cinemas this weekend. By clicking the yellow promoted link, users of the site will be taken to the latest tweets about the film, headed by a Promoted Tweet published by the advertiser at the top of the results. The first Promoted Trends were launched on Thursday, and Twitter will base the future of the advertising model on its success. (Source: BigMouthMedia)

When AOl bought social networking site Bebo two years ago for $ 850m, some pundits called it "one of the worst deals ever made in the dotcom era". They were right. Now AOL has sold Bebo to the small private investment firm Criterion Capital Partners for what the same pundits expect will be a fraction of the price AOL paid in 2008. Bebo just never had a chance to compete effectively against social networking giants such as Facebook. Earlier this year, AOL announced plans to sell or shut down Bebo because it was unable to provide the "significant investment" needed to prevent its decline as a business. AOL’s timing was simply wrong, while the timing of Bebo’s founder, Michael Birch, was excellent: he walked away with $300m. (Source: BBC)

Apple’s iPad has only be on the market for four weeks but according to Advertising Age, the campaigns that run on the new device are watched mote than those on other platforms. That may be due to the fact that early adopters find anything on the iPad fascinating, including ads. The question is whether those rates will stay high once the novelty of the device wears off. Early iPad advertisers are eager to experiment with the new platform to see how campaigns perform and how best to approach it, either directly through publishers or as a network ad buy via iAd, which is launching in July.