Pakistan Live News: Zong Student Earning Program for youth

Pakistan Live News: Zong Student Earning Program for youth: "Zong Student Entrepreneur Program gives exclusive chance to students of Pakistan to get on-board with ZONG and become exclusive partners. ..."

Google is targeting content farms – a common name for low quality sites whose main goal is to attract search traffic by piling up (mostly) useless content

Google has announced a major algorithmic change to its search engine, subtle in nature and perhaps unnoticeable to many users, but one that should dramatically improve the quality of Google’s search results.
With this move, Google is targeting content farms – a common name for low quality sites whose main goal is to attract search traffic by piling up (mostly) useless content, usually by either producing large amounts of low-quality text or by copying it from websites with original content.
Google does not go into details of the change which should impact 11.8% of Google’s queries (currently only in the US, with plans to roll it out elsewhere over time), but it does say that it will affect the ranking of many sites on the web.

Huzoor Bux

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on,” explain Googlers Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts in a blog post.
While the change will surely have many website owners up in arms, complaining that their website was unfairly ranked lower than before (we’re sure that in some cases they will be right), it’s a very welcome one.
The popularity of Google’s search engine is still second to none, but Google has been plagued by black hat SEO practices and content farms for a while now, with the complaints from users slowly mounting over time. If Google manages to put an end to content farms or at least significantly reduce their influence in search results, it will be an important step in regaining the trust of its millions of users.

Nearly Half of Americans Use Facebook; Only 7% Use Twitter [STUDY]

A new report from eMarketer finds that most adult Americans with Internet access use Facebook at least once a month, and a full 42.3% of the entire American population was using the site as of this month.
By contrast, Twitter‘s penetration rate was much lower, sitting at around 7% of the total population and 9% of the Internet-using population, according to the report.
Late last year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company saw around 250 million daily users of its 500 million-strong user base. The young exec made the point that Facebook’s products — including Photos, Places, Groups and Messages — are features that people use more frequently than they use other, more established services with similar features because Facebook’s products are inherently social.
Twitter, on the other hand, is driven largely by so-called power users, and only 21% of registered users are actually active on the site. Another interesting and related Twitter usage stat: 22.5% of users are responsible for 90% of all tweets.

Huzoor Bux

One important stat to note, however, is Twitter’s year-over-year growth. Last year around this time, Twitter’s penetration rate was around 7%, and by the end of this year it’s expected to be at 11% for American Internet users, or 16.5% of the population that also uses other social networks. In terms of the overall U.S. population, the numbers are still small, but the growth is steady.
An analyst for the firm said, “eMarketer’s new Twitter usage estimates are lower than our April 2010 forecast. Since then, Twitter has continued to gain traction but at more moderate levels than we had expected.”
The microblogging service celebrated 100 million new accounts created in 2010, and a lot of that growth was due to the company’s investment in official and device-integrated mobile apps.
What do you think it’ll take for Twitter’s growth to really skyrocket and reach more of the population? Or will this service remain a niche product for the web-using elite? Let us know your opinions below.

WordPress 3.1 Goes Live: Here's What's New

The WordPress team pushed out version 3.1, code name “Reinhardt,” on Wednesday, bringing a host of new and updated features to users and developers.

WordPress 3.0 was released back in June 2010, along with its own set of new functions and features. The 3.1 release cycle was originally expected to be completed before the end of 2010, but bugs and various changes pushed that date back.

I have been using the various beta and release candidate versions of WordPress 3.1 since November and am especially excited about a few of the new additions and improvements.

From an interface perspective, WordPress 3.1 shares the same look as WordPress 3.0. A few minor changes have been made to give the WordPress dashboard a cleaner look, but the overall design remains the same. The one exception is for users of the blue admin theme. The colors and stylings for the blue theme have been refined and improved across the board.

Post Formats, At Last

My favorite new feature in WordPress 3.1 is the addition of Post Formats. Not to be confused with the similar sounding Custom Post Types, Post Formats can be used by theme authors to customize the way a WordPress post is presented on the web. Post Formats is not a required feature, but it is something that theme designers can implement to better show off certain content types.

Post Formats are especially useful for users who want to create a Tumblr-like experience on their WordPress blog. That means that users can designate a post as an aside, link, video, image, quote, status, audio, chat or gallery. That designation can then help a theme determine how content should be displayed.

That means that a post formatted as a quote might display a quote in a big italicized font, whereas a video post has a custom width.

Over the past few months, a number of WordPress theme developers have instated their own versions of Post Formats into themes, but with the new standardization, we expect to see the feature crop up in more places. Adding support for Post Formats requires theme authors to add a few lines of code to their templates and stylesheets.

WordPress contributor Otto wrote a great post about Post Formats several months ago that is definitely worth the read.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is a new feature in WordPress 3.1 that makes it easier for publishers to find and link back to previously published content. At Mashable, we often use internal linking to refer back to earlier coverage or give additional insight into a topic or idea.

Most of the time, the process of finding the link requires either searching the site or doing a custom Google search to get a specific URL. I use TextMate for all of my writing and have a custom bundle that actually lets me search the Mashable archives by entering a keyword or phrase without having to leave my editor.

WordPress’s internal linking tool isn’t quite that slick, but it does make the process of finding and linking to content much faster. Simply click on the link button in the writing panel and enter in a word or phrase. Related entries will show up and clicking on an entry will fill the link field with the correct URL.

For sites with lots of content, we can see this feature being very useful.

The Admin Bar

WordPress.com users are probably familiar with the admin bar that appears atop every WordPress.com-hosted site when they are logged into their accounts. The menu provides quick access to various tools and lets users quickly create new blog posts or access back-end features.

The WordPress.org admin bar will only work when users are logged into their own sites. When they are, visiting the site will display an admin bar that will then provide easy access to comments, the dashboard and other assorted tools.

I personally am not a fan of the new admin bar — and I dislike that it is enabled by default. I can see how it can be useful, especially for administrators of large blogs, but for me, it’s a hindrance. Fortunately, the WordPress team listened to some of the complaints and added the option to turn the bar on or off in the dashboard’s “Users” panel.

For individuals that want to disable the admin bar entirely, Joost de Valk has a great guide.

Update Now

WordPress 3.1 is available for download and existing WordPress users can perform the upgrade from the dashboard.

Is the admin bar a useful tool? Let us know what you think of WordPress 3.1 in the comments.

How to Move WordPress Blog to New Domain or Location » My Digital Life

How to Move WordPress Blog to New Domain or Location

For blogger who self-hosts the WordPress blog publishing system on a web hosting server with own registered domain name, sometimes, you may decide to reorganize the blog link URL to make it tidier or to reflect new focus or theme of the blog. If you decide to change the URL or link location of your WordPress blog due to changing of domain name (such as from http://www.old-domain.com/ to http://www.new-domain.com/) or the blog to another directory location (such as from http://www.domain.com/ to http://www.domain.com/blog/), there are some steps that should be done to ensure the proper migration and no breaking links.

The tricky part when moving WordPress blog to another location is that WordPress is using absolute path in URL link instead of relative path in URL link location when stores some parameters in database. Within blog posts’ contents itself, users may also use the old URLs when creating reference backlinks. All these values in the database will need to be changed when WordPress is moved. The following guide will show you which database fields that has references or values related to blog’s URLs that you want to modify. Note that this guide is not about how to move WordPress blog from one server or host to another new hosting service.

Once the blog has been moved (all files copy over in case of moving location or server or new domain name properly propagated across Internet for new domain name), the first thing to change is to tell WordPress the new blog location (wp-config.php should be no changes, and .htaccess file should be also no changes. If for some reason mod_rewrite rules for friendly URLs no longer works, you can always regenerate the .htaccess file via WP Administration’s Update Permalinks page). This value can be changed via WordPress Options page, but if you no longer able to access to old blog URL, you have to modify the value via MySQL database.

Note: The guide uses SQL statements based on MySQL replace() function to modify the database. To run SQL queries, login to MySQL database that houses WordPress tables via phpMyAdmin or login to the DB server and run MySQL client as root.

To update WordPress options with the new blog location, use the following SQL command:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';

After that you will need to fix URLs of the WordPress posts and pages, which translated from post slug, and stored in database wp_posts table as guid field. The URL values in this field are stored as absolute URLs instead of relative URLs, so it needs to be changed with the following SQL query:

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.old-domain.com','http://www.new-domain.com');

If you have linked internally within blog posts or pages with absolute URLs, these links will point to wrong locations after you move the blog location. Use the following SQL commands to fix all internal links to own blog in all WordPress posts and pages:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com');

Browse through WordPress blog to check if everything is okay. You also need to re-login to WP Administration as authentication cookie has now became invalid due to different domain.

DIDx.net API | Webuman Being ... By Arfeen

DIDx.net is the wholesale DID numbers trading platform.

DID.net offers various APIs to integrate the DIDx functionality with your app or web sites. Most of the APIs are for buyers, and one API can be used by you if you are a ‘Seller’ on DIDx.net.

The API is built on SOAP technology, so it can be used from anywhere if you are using SOAP. All of the APIs are built on PHP but if you are insterested in .Net API, they are also available.

Currently these APIs are available on DIDx.net.

* Get a list of available DID for those areas for which you do not have a DID stock
o 1B Get List of available DID countries
o 1C Get List of available DID areas
o 1D Get List of DID by country code,vendor rating,free minutes etc.
o 1E Get a List of available NXX list by NPA
o 1F Get a List of available Channel Based DIDs
o 1G Get a list of available DIDs by country-area code and document requirements

* Purchasing a DID
* Release a DID
* Get cost of a particular DID
* Method for changing current SIP or IAX address
* Method for getting current Ringto address type
* Offer DID to sale on DIDx For Sellers Only
* Get DID Free Minutes and Per Minute Charges After Free Minutes
* Get DID Call Logs
* Get DID Information
* Apply document for the numbers which have document restriction
* Place Back Order
* Local Number Portability
* Sellers API to Offer DID numbers on DIDx.net
* Get the list of purchased numbers from your account

The complete information regarding DIDx.net API is available on DIDx.net KB.

via arfeen.net

VirtualPhoneLine.com iPhone App | Webuman Being ... By Arfeen

VirtualPhoneLine.com has introduced an iPhone application for its users.

Now all the virtualphoneline.com users can use the iPhone app to avail the full functionality of VirtualPhoneLine.com.

The iPhone app is now avaiable on Appstore

via arfeen.net

Facebook Rolling Out Brand New Photos Interface

Facebook‘s all-new design for displaying photos now appears to be rolling out to quite a few users. It features larger images, a lightbox-type UI and other features that put Facebook in even more competition with Flickr on the casual and social photography front.

We got wind of these new Facebook Photos features some months ago around the end of September. And while some users have had this feature for a while, we were beginning to wonder why Facebook was delaying a general roll-out.

However, Facebook did confirm yesterday that the new photo viewer was on its way to all users soon; and tonight, we’re seeing this new interface from several accounts.

One major benefit, from Facebook’s perspective, is that users will be able to browse through many photos in the lightbox layer without disrupting the underlying page and “losing their place.” Other features include hi-res photos, photo-download links and bulk tagging options.

In fact, as we noted last fall, many of these feature upgrades strongly mirror recent changes to Flickr’s own UI during the summer of 2010.

Along with Tag Suggestions, a.k.a. nascent facial recognition technology, Facebook’s photo offering, which has long been a distinguishing factor of the social network, is remaining strong and competitive.

Check your Facebook account to see if you have the new interface; if you don’t have it tonight, expect it to come over the next couple weeks.

In the comments, let us know what you think of the new Facebook Photos. Are these improvements more welcome to you than other changes Facebook has made in the past?

via mashable.com

Donation Via PakiPay

What is DIDX ?

via youtube.com

DIDX is a registered and patented service of Super Technologies Inc.

In 2005, Super Technologies, Inc. noted the popularity of Virtual Phone Lines among its international and USA clients. Our company wanted to share the benefits with global providers of our dozen interconnects with international operators and carriers for DID and DDI. Thus, DIDX was created, an invention by Rehan Ahmed, the company CEO, President, and co-founder.

DIDX creates a huge and new vertical market for CLECs, ILECs and local regional telecoms and voip companies to sell their DID on the wholesale level. Normally, DID (phone numbers) are idle (not sold, like wasted inventory). DIDX helps “sellers” make them available to be sold anywhere on Earth, with the blessing of the Internet, creating an a new revenue stream for the hundreds of “sellers” and also for the thousands of wholesale “buyers” who buy and resell.

DIDX shares a new and lucrative Vertical Market. Even a small CLEC from Iowa can sell numbers to a small ITSP from New Zealand, for example. Both benefit greatly in revenue and market expansion. In addition, the DIDX sellers make money not just from the DID rental but also from the APC charges that the other CLEC pays to complete calls. Read More about how to make money from APC.

DIDX empowers “sellers” to sell their DID numbers and “buyers” to buy DID numbers and resell to their end-users with the DIDX billing and control platform. DIDX provides the necessary billing software where we invoice the wholesale “buyer” customer on DIDX. In addition, the “sellers” and “buyers” see the same CDRs so there is no question on billing.

As of May 2010, over 17,000 wholesale level buyers in 170 countries use DIDX to select and buy the DID numbers from 70 nations of a large pool of DID “sellers.” DIDX simplifies the buy/sell process to be a success for all. Plus DIDX offers free publicity and marketing tools to its members that include podcasts, press releases, product reviews, customer testimonials, videos, and more for publication about each of their companies.

Cloud printing on the go - Official Google Mobile Blog

Cloud printing on the go

Monday, January 24, 2011 | 10:00 AM

(Cross-posted on the Docs Blog and Gmail Blog.)

Back in April 2010 we announced Google Cloud Print, a service that in Beta allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install any software. Just last month we opened Google Cloud Print to users in the Chrome notebook pilot program. Today we are very pleased to announce the beta launch of Google Cloud Print for mobile documents and Gmail for mobile, which we will be rolling out to users throughout the next few days.

Imagine printing an important document from your smartphone on the way to work and finding the printout waiting for you when you walk in the door. Just open a document in Google Docs or an email in Gmail in your mobile browser and choose “Print” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner. You can also print certain kinds of email attachments (such as .pdf or .doc) by clicking the “Print” link that appears next to them.

 

This feature will be rolling out today and tomorrow for English speaking users in the US and will work on most phones that support HTML5, such as devices running Android 2.1+ and iOS 3+. To get started, you’ll need to connect your printer to Google Cloud Print. This step requires a Windows PC for now, but Linux and Mac support are coming soon. You can learn more at the Google Cloud Print help center.

Happy printing!

Apple’s App Store hits 10 billion downloads

Now that the number of App Store downloads to iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads around the world has handily exceeded the population of Planet Earth, we can hopefully put this story to bed until they hit another factor of ten — and as unreasonable as 100 billion downloads sounds, we’ll bet it actually won’t take that long. That’s right: just a few days after kicking off its online counter, Apple’s officially hit the 10 billion mark, which is a whole lot of software any way you slice it. So, Android Market, you’re next?

How to: Make Your Samsung Galaxy S I9000 Run Fast

Hello guys I thought I’d make a little how to and make my first thread that really contributes to the XDA community, so here we go !

Please make sure you have access to 3 button mode(voldown+home+power) to get into download mode. If not please see this thread :

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=785201 !

I’M NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR BREAK YOUR PHONE, ALTHOUGH IT’S UNLIKELY YOUR TAKING THE RISK BY MODIFYING IT!

Instructions:

First -

Consider which Samsung ROM you want to have installed on your phone. Currently JPY is the fastest stock FroYo ROM from Samsung.

JPY 2.2.1 ROM : http://www.multiupload.com/UHJNT0K1F2

.RAR Password : samfirmware.com

ODIN Flashing Tool : http://www.multiupload.com/4JLU4QHUV7

Download these and your ready to go!

Second -

Before flashing any roms, please disable any form of lagfix you are currently using!

Extract I9000XXJPY.rar and odin 1.3.rar

Start up odin1.3.exe

Now click on PDA and select the JPY.tar that you just extracted.

Place your phone into download mode and connect via USB.
You must start Odin before plugging your phone in! Odin is very temperamental.

Now flash your phone and you will reboot into the latest Samsung ROM.

Third -

Now it’s time to add some speed!

You will have to decide which kernel suits you most.

Using a super fast kernel with a lagfix will really improve the performance of your device. Converting Samsung’s RFS Filesystem to much better EXT4 Filesystem should stop all the hang ups etc that you will encounter on your device. Supercurio’s Voodoo LagFix converts partitions to EXT4. You will also have to option to convert to EXT4 with hardcore’s kernel and most other kernels.

Do you want Overclock, Voodoo LagFix plus Voodoo Sound?

Then Trasig’s kernel is for you :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=823300

Do you want a stable Kernel with a ton of features aimed at purely improving your phones speed?(NOW WITH VOODOO SOUND!

Then Hardcore’s kernel is for you :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=822756

Would you like a kernel similar to harcore’s with Overclock?

Laststufos kernel is for you :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=811660

Fourth -

Now you have decided which kernel that suits your needs, Download it!

Now load up Odin, place the kernel’s .tar in the PDA section, connect your phone in download mode and flash!

Fifth -

Now your super fast kernel is installed, reboot into recovery (vol up+home+power)

If your on trasig’s kernel, follow these instructions:

Select ‘voodoo lagfix’ under ClockworkMod Recovery
Select ‘enable lagfix’
It’s optional but for extra speed also select ‘/system lagfix on’
Now reboot!
DON’T BE ALARMED IF YOUR PHONE STARTS TALKING TO YOU.
The voice is just telling you that it’s converting RFS to EXT4.
Just leave your phone be until it boots into Android.

If your on hardcore’s kernel, follow these instructions:

Select ‘advanced ULK features’
Select ‘install superuser’
This will root your phone
Now go back and select speedmod then tweaks and enable the first four
Now go back and select lagfix
Select EXT4 and reboot
Your phone will ask you to backup and restore select yes and wait for reboot into android. This may take a while.

-Laststufo’s instructions will be added later-

Sixth -

Now we have kernels sorted out so they’re ready for a super fast ROM.

Personally I have tried and tested and are a big fan of:

Darkys V8.0 -
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=814091

Doc’s & Stefunel’s magical ROM Kitchen -
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=817703

Darky’s ROM is an all in one ROM that’s been super optimised to make your phone fly.

Doc & Stefunel’s kitchen gives to user the ability to build there ROM from scratch, you get to decide which features you want in your ROM. Also it too is super optimised!

Both of these ROMs are updated frequently so if any bugs are encountered you can be sure they will be fixed as soon as possible.

So know you’ve chosen which ROM to flash to your device, the next bit is easy.

Transfer the .zip ROM on to your internal storage
Now reboot into recovery(vol+up,home,power)
Select ‘install zip from sdcard’
Select ‘choose zip from sdcard’
Now navigate to the .zip that you just transferred to your device and select it
Your super fast ROM is now installing and this may take a while
After installation reboot

To enable overclock on compatible kernels use xan’s excellent app, Voltage Control : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=829731

Darky’s ROM comes with it’s own kernel, if you would like to stick with the kernel you chose in step 3, just follow the instructions again.

Seventh -

Enjoy!

I have tried my best to make this guide almost noob proof, however if there’s anything I’ve missed out or it doesn’t make sense please tell me and I’ll try my best to make it more suitable. As things progress I plan to update this post so please stay tuned.

Hello

Hello my name is Huzoor Bux i worked in Super Technologies Inc.

Facebook is not closing on March 15 - The Times of India

NEW DELHI: If you spend a better part of your life living out of Facebook, rejoice. Facebook won't be closing on March 15 after all. Surprised? Read on ...

More than one million people have already fallen for a hoax that claims that the popular social networking site will be shutting down on March 15.

According to IT security firm Sophos, a bogus news story published by the "Weekly World News", said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had told reporters that "managing [Facebook] has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness."

Some panic-stricken Facebook users and mischief-mongers spread the story far and wide across the internet in no time. Although Facebook debunked the hoax via its Twitter account late on Sunday, users still continue to pass the bogus messages onto their online friends.

The "Weekly World News" article went on to quote another company official, Avrat Humarthi, vice-president of technical affairs at Facebook, as saying "After March 15th the whole website shuts down. So if you ever want to see your pictures again, I recommend you take them off the internet. You won't be able to get them back once Facebook goes out of business."

Sophos said that many people would not believe the report, which comes from a newspaper that has previously reported George Clooney is running for president and that alien spacecrafts will visit earth in 2011. However, it only takes only a small number of people to think it might be possible to turn a joke of a news story into an internet hoax as has been proved many a times in the past few years.

"I certainly wouldn't disagree that users would be wise to have their own backup of their photographs, rather than rely on Facebook -- but it's nothing more than a scare to suggest to people that they have to do it before March15th because Facebook is going to close down," explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"There's an important lesson here -- don't believe everything you read on the internet, and think twice before you pass a story on to your friends."

Although a hoax is not as serious as malware worming its way between users and stealing information, it's still a nuisance, clogging up communications, increasing the overall level of spam and perhaps leading people to make decisions for the wrong reasons.

A number of Facebook users had earlier last week reported fallen prey to another viral scam -- My 1st St@atus -- which was designed to earn revenue for its perpetrators. Messages claiming to share the users' first ever Facebook status updates were being posted on users' walls by a rogue application.

Typical posts read -- "My 1st St@tus was: '[random message]'. This was posted on [random date]. Find your 1st St@tus @ [LINK]". When users clicked on this link, which appeared to have been posted by a Facebook friend, they were taken to a rogue Facebook application.

This application would then ask users to give it permission to access their profile. This would give the rogue application the ability to post the same message from the affected account to all in the friends' list. Users were also taken to a webpage which contained a survey.

Those behind such scams make commission from the number of people completing this survey and in some cases, Facebook users might also be asked for their mobile phone numbers in order to sign them up for an expensive, premium-rate service.

"Sadly, many people are all too quick to give permission to rogue applications like this, giving the bad guys free reign of their Facebook account," said Cluley.

"If users allow these applications to access their profiles, they may well find that the application has posted a message on their Facebook page, which is visible to all of their online friends, helping to spread the scam further. I deliberately infected a test account with this application, and it didn't even get my first status or the date correct! Unfortunately, by the time users realised this, they might have already helped the scammers by spreading the message across their network," he added.

Facebook users who have been affected should delete references to this scam from their wall, to avoid sharing it further with their online friends.

Breaking News--FACEBOOK WILL END ON MARCH 15th!

Yes, you are reading right! Facebook will end on March 15th, 2011.This means that the friends which you have made and interacted with during Facebook life time will not be accessible anymore; maybe funeral arrangements could be made to bid farewell to beloved Facebook.

According to founder Mark ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg operating Facebook has become stressful taking too much out of him. Therefore,

“After March 15th the whole website shuts down,” said Avrat Humarthi, Vice President of Technical Affairs at Facebook. “So if you ever want to see your pictures again, I recommend you take them off the internet. You won’t be able to get them back once Facebook goes out of business.”

Further the founder has been quoted to saying from a world news interview on the decision that

“I personally don’t think it’s a big deal. And to be honest, I think it’s for the better. Without Facebook, people will have to go outside and make real friends. That’s always a good thing…….. I don’t care about the money. I just want my old life back.”

Speculations are that he has made enough money or there is something else which is not being told to the public about the closure of Facebook. However, it could be a great idea for fans to collaborate and start their own Facebook site. What do you think?

Skype - The Big Blog - Skype to acquire Qik

I’m Skype’s CEO. I’m responsible for overseeing the company’s direction and strategy and am ultimately responsible for its performance.

  Tony Bates

Skype to acquire Qik

I’m happy to announce that we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik, a provider of mobile video software and services that let people capture, instantly share and preserve great moments on video from anywhere. Qik has 60 employees, and is headquartered in Redwood City, California and has an office in Moscow, Russia. We expect to close the transaction in January 2011.

Qik is available on over 200 mobile phones running Android, iOS, Symbian, BlackBerry OS and Windows Mobile, and comes preloaded on a wide variety of mobile handsets through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile networks.

Skype and Qik share a common purpose of enriching communications with video, and the acquisition of Qik will help to accelerate our leadership in video by adding recording, sharing and storing capabilities to our product portfolio.

Through this acquisition, we’ll also be able to take advantage of the engineering expertise that is behind Qik’s Smart Streaming technology, which optimizes video transmission over wireless networks.

Together, we’ll focus on providing great products that will allow people around the world to share experiences in real-time video across different platforms, as well as storing those moments so they can be viewed later.