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Looks like Google is looking forward to close the deal by the end of this year. In case you are wondering what Yelp is. Yelp is a local search that also reviews all kinds of businesses from restaurants to spas, pretty much everything.

Google is reportedly brokering a deal to buy local search and review property Yelp for $500 million.The Web site had 26 million visitors in the last 30 days through November. If Google can get Yelp, it will have a treasure trove of local information with which it can pair contextual mobile ads. If Google does bid for Yelp, it would be Google’s seventh of 2009, preceded by On2 Technologies, ReCaptcha, AdMob, Gizmo5, Teracent and AppJet, all since August.

Yelp local search engine in Google's claws?

With the end of 2009 drawing nigh, Google is reportedly brokering a deal to buy local search and review property Yelp for $500 million, a royal sum for a company that banked $31 million in funding and boasts a $30 million run rate.

Google is no stranger to such premiums and set a serious precedent by offering $750 million for AdMob, which IDC said earned $40 million in mobile display ad sales in 2009.

A Google spokesperson declined to confirm or deny a deal, first reported by TechCrunch, was forthcoming, coyly telling eWEEK: “While we’re always talking to various companies about various things, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”

elp provides reviews for local businesses, including restaurants, spas and pretty much any type of concern one might need to call on to aid them through the daily grind. The Web site had 26 million visitors in the last 30 days through November.

“Yelpers,” as the site’s members are known, have composed more than 8 million reviews, representing a massive volume of opinion and ratings. Yelpers can also share information with fellow Yelpers, making the property a niche social network.

Google wants this information to boost the data and services it already provides with its Local Business Center. Participating businesses list their phone numbers, hours of operation and other factoids with Google, which renders this info on Google Maps Place Pages, which include directions, reviews and other information pertinent to specific businesses. Yelp has been immensely successful providing similar info, but lacks Google’s massive Web presence.

Google also recently unveiled its “Favorite Places on Google” initiative, which lets more than 100,000 business owners in its LBC place a window sticker with a bar code on their storefronts. Users walking by on the street can scan the QR code from their Apple iPhone, Android-powered phones, surfacing the business’ Place Page right from their handhelds. Local mobile search and advertising are the keys to Google buying Yelp.

If Google can get Yelp, it will have a treasure trove of local information with which it can pair contextual mobile ads. A user walking around a city with his Apple iPhone or Android device could feel his phone vibrate. He would check the phone and see shopping alerts from Google/Yelp, which might also offer them coupons from retailers.

Imagine two-for-one offers from clothing stores, a free cup of coffee offer as one passes the local Starbucks, or a 10 percent off coupon from a nearby Indian restaurant. With Yelp data powering Google Maps Place Pages on Android phones, the ad possibilities are endless.

Adam Bunn, of U.K. search marketers Greenlight, said such a deal would give Google fresh local search results without the need to go through the usual crawling and indexing process and sending searchers to another site. This points to the huge potential for Google to sell targeted ads. Interestingly, Bunn said Google seems to be taking a page out of a competitor’s playbook, and it’s not local search power Yahoo.

“This is one of the strategies that Microsoft had chosen for Bing, and the main reason why it took so long for Bing to launch properly in the UK; identifying potential content or functionality partners relevant to that market, negotiating with them and then integrating their data takes time.”

Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland noted that in Yelp Google would also be acquiring a fat sales force of advertisers:

“[Yelp] COO Geoff Donaker told us at last week’s Interactive Local Media show that 200 of the company’s 300 employees are advertiser facing in some way, including account rep or direct sales positions. Google has always maintained that it’s not in its strategic interests to  buy or build a direct sales force to access the elusive SMB marketplace at the heart of its “long tail” paid search efforts. That’s kind of true but this deal changes it a bit.”

If Google does bid for Yelp, it would be Google’s seventh of 2009, preceded by On2 Technologies, ReCaptcha, AdMob, Gizmo5, Teracent and AppJet, all since August. Moreover, Google is also rumored to be eyeing real-estate search provider Trulia.

These deals underscore how Google is well positioned to maintain and extend its lengthy search, ad and Web services lead into 2010.

Source : eWeek.com

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

After being delayed by almost 2 years, the Boeing 787 is all set to make its first flight today. The first flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is scheduled for 10 a.m. PT, 1 p.m. ET today.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is the most awaited flight and it has already been delayed for so long. It was set to make its first test flight in 2007. After all the delays its finally ready to make it. Well after all it faced a lot of problems from design issues to strikes and even shortage in bolts. Who would have guessed shortage in bolts could cause so much delay ?

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has maximum seating capacity is between 290 and 330 passengers, depending on the model.

Boeing says the plane is more fuel-efficient compared to earlier Boeing airliners and will be the first major airliner to use composite materials for most of its construction.

To celebrate its first flight Boeing is all also going to make a live webcast of the whole event. Well, I don’t want to be watching a boring flight travel in my PC. I might have better things to do. But the take-off and landing will have some good celebrations.

For those who are interested in catching the 787 Webcast, go here :
Live Webcast: Watch Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s First Flight Online

Here are five facts about the 787 Dreamliner:

* The 787 Dreamliner promises greater fuel efficiency through the use of durable, light-weight composite materials.

* Planes in the 787 family have list prices between $150 million and $205.5 million.

* Boeing has taken orders for 840 Dreamliners.

* The most recent delay results from a structural problem within the side-of-body joint of the aircraft — the connection of the wing to the fuselage.

* The 787 will use 20 percent less fuel for comparable missions in similarly sized airplanes.

Boeing is hoping to restore its credibility as a good plane-maker.

The  temporary burial of Interest rate in the world  has again CAME  back to life. Is it  ridiculous, well Australian Government has come out and declared that  the  interest rate will be  increased to  3.25%  from  3%.

Australia who avoided   the Recession last year was  a lone nation to survive from the wrath of  Economy downfall when the entire  world was crying with  financial loss.

The central bank  of Australia is the first  to come out and announce the increase in  interest  since  the beginning of  2008.  Adding  if  all goes  well, then the interest  rate will be back to the normal one   5%.

Now, this is   the toughest thing to cope  up seeing there is no  jobs at all.

I found an interesting  article on the concept for High Frequency trading . The credit for the post is deserved by blogs.reuters.com.

The explosion of interest in high-frequency trading has started to drag new faces to sometimes staid industry conferences. Traders who for years worked on algorithms and computer codes behind the scenes are stepping into the spotlight. They’re appearing on more and more panel discussions, feeling the need to defend their practice against the slings and arrows of politicians and regulators.

So far, they’ve managed to mix exasperation with good humor. The head of one high-frequency trading shop, speaking on a panel this week, said that if you believe everything you read in newspapers you might think the practice is “an unfair, highly profitable and socially useless trading strategy implemented by highly secretive and unregulated traders using superfast computers to compete with retail investors, manipulate markets and front run flash orders causing volatility in the financial markets and creating systemic risk.”

He argued that a more accurate definition of high-frequency trading would be, “a wide variety of highly competitive, low margin trading strategies implemented by professional market intermediaries who have invested heavily in technology that have the effect of making the markets more efficient by enhancing liquidity and transparent price discovery to the benefit of investors.”

Ken Lewis, the embattled CEO of Bank of America Corp., is leaving the company, succumbing to nearly a year of strife that followed his company’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co.

The bank, the nation’s largest by assets, said Wednesday that Lewis, 62, decided on his own to leave and would retire as CEO and also leave the company’s board by the end of the year. The company did not announce a successor, saying one would be selected by the time Lewis steps down Dec. 31.

The fact that no succession plan was announced indicated that the Bank of America board did not expect Lewis’ decision at this time. Nonetheless, the news, coming after shareholders had stripped Lewis of his chairman’s title earlier this year, wasn’t surprising because of the intense pressure he came under after the Merrill Lynch deal, including criticism about billions of dollars in bonuses given to Merrill Lynch employees.

Lewis had said he would stay on as CEO until after the company’s financial problems were resolved, a process expected to take several years.

However, with the bank also under heavy criticism from government officials, Lewis was increasingly seen as vulnerable.

“He’s had a big target on his chest for the whole Merrill Lynch deal, and I can only imagine the emotional stress he’s endured ” said Alan Villalon, senior research analyst at Minneapolis-based First American Funds, which owns Bank of America stock.

For more on this news Visit the following  link or click it

Ken Lewis Retiring

For related news on this topic, visit the following link

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ken-lewis-announces-his-retirement-62932057.html

The most  prominent guide for labour market of  UK ” The Markit” has came up with a new and hope giving Survey.

According to the Markit Survey conducted on UK employment hiring, the current level of  job hiring has increased to a great effect. To say , the new job posting in on a high after a dreadful  17 long months.

So is this the final path to recovery? Still the question is unanswered. Markit Survey fails to give the answer for this and has avoided itself by saying  “It is not a confirm message that Market is improving, but still the patches of improvement is visible throughout the market”

This is what the Sponsors have to say on the Survey–

“This is first time we have seen really positive news for the UK jobs market in 17 months,” said Bernard Brown from KPMG, co-sponsor of the survey.

“It seems that employers are becoming more confident in their hiring decisions,” said Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, the survey’s other co-sponsor.