I've always been keen on saving energy. Now that LED lighting is becoming so much more affordable i've accelerated moves to change the household lamps over from CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) to LEDs as each CFL fails.

I like the energy-saving of CFLs over incandescent lamps, but I dislike the warm-up time of the CFL, and the problems associated with the toxic content within the lamp. I've had the glass tube of at least two CFLs break, depositing glass shards and the lamp's content in the vicinity. With great care I removed the broken components, according to recommended advice.

I have noticed a proliferation of relatively low cost LED lamps appearing on the market. They are constructed using surface mounted LED chips on what appears to be a ceramic substrate. The quality of construction appears relatively low, and the power rating comparable with CFLs, however, they offer the advantage of instant on. This is perfect for stairways, or where there may be a movement detector. With no 'warm-up', as with CFLs, it makes it much safer. There is a better range of quality LED lamps which are less affordable yet offer much better energy-saving performance and much better construction. I suspect these are going to be the lamps with true longevity, with the lower cost LED lamps failing sooner.

Whichever I end up using, I'll keep switching over time.

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Last week's WebmasterWorld Weekly is here.

Here's this week's WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup.

Google has indicated that assuming the company gains control of such top-level domains as .search, .app, .blog, and .cloud, it doesn't seems to want to restrict their use to its own products, opening up some to the public.





WebmasterWorld Supporters discuss what should be on your must have list for an ecommerce site. (Subscription required)





Privacy concerns may doom Google Glasses even before they are launched. "...bar in Seattle has formally announced its intention to prohibit the product from its establishment.

I heard this week that YouTube's co-founder was working on new video collaboration site. Chad Hurley said, "I wish [South by Southwest] was a month later because I could unveil the new product."

A study indicated that Facebook 'Likes' predict personality. I'm not surprised by those findings, however, it's assuming people are honest about their 'likes.' If they are not honest, it'll reflect the 'personality' they create.





Pinterest this week launched a new analytics service to help sites understand what content is driving interest. Find out more in our thread on the topic.





Google has settled U.S. Street View data collection case with a $7 million fine. The legal settlement was announced by US Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman.

Google has announced a help site for webmasters unfortunate enough to be hacked. It's worth a look now so you can know what's there should you require it. I hope you'll never need it!
Here's the intro video.






More Google news: Google this week has added new features for AdWords scripts, including negative keywords, IDs, new reports, increases limits, etc.

eBay published the results of its study into advertising on Google, and it questions its value. "Incremental revenue from paid search was far smaller than expected because existing customers would have come to eBay regardless, whether directly or through other marketing channels," said an eBay representative. It really does depend on so many factors, so ads for one site may work, and for other well-known sites it's likely to have less impact, imho.

Google Reader is to close down in July 2013! Google said, "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader."





Twitter this week has revamped its Ads center. "Based on feedback from our advertisers, we've created a revamped experience that improves campaign reporting, provides more visibility into campaign performance, analytics and spend, and also makes it easier to manage campaigns in real time."





comScore published its U.S. search share for February 2013 and Google sites led search market with 67.5 pct. Find out how the others did, too, in our thread.

In the last week, Google launched its "How Search Works." Google said, "Here you can follow the entire life of a search query, from the web, to crawling and indexing, to algorithmic ranking and serving, to fighting webspam. The site complements existing resources, including this blog, the help center, user forums, Webmaster Tools, and in-depth research papers." Find out what it's all about in the thread.





ICANN's Trademark Clearing House was launched this week. ICANN's announcement said, "The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) - launching March 26 - is the most important rights protection mechanism built into ICANN's new gTLD program. It allows brand owners to submit their trademark data into one centralized database, prior to and during the launch of new gTLDs. Simply put: The TMCH is a one-stop-solution for protecting your brand in the new gTLD era." If you have a trademark, it's worth following through on this.

Microsoft Bing said it was betting on deep search integration. "We believe typing in a search box is not going to be the model going forward," Have your say in the discussion.





Google made a management move this week which indicates more about the future for Chrome and Android OS: Google Chrome's Sundar Pichai has taken over Android from Andy Rubin.

Investors in Yandex are to sell their shares of up to $607 million, with a suggestion the business is struggling to maintain strong growth.

Google is to acquire speech recognition experts in DNNresearch Inc., for its research on deep neural networks.

Microsoft had to explain its Outlook and SkyDrive outage this week, and it seems the problem was overheating.

There was a report going round that Twitter is readying a music App for launch this month. Watch this space, methinks.

What's this, Google is experimenting with jewelry instead of passwords! Find out more about what that's about in the thread.

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What news have you heard this week? If you've found some news that we haven't covered or discussed, drop me a message, or post it yourself and let me know.
Until next time, have a terrific week!

Cheers
Neil
@engine

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