Google buys FeedBurner

Google has acquired FeedBurner, a provider of RSS services to organisations including the BBC and Amazon, reports PC Pro.

In addition to providing feed distribution and management tools, FeedBurner helps publishers to analyse and monetise their content. It also has technologies for the targeting and delivering of advertising via RSS, both as an adjunct to content and as the main feed itself.

Susan Wojcicki, Google's VP of product management, said the acquisition reflects a constant search for new tools for content creators and Web site publishers. "We're excited to continue offering the exceptional tools of FeedBurner to content creators throughout the world, and our teams will work together to improve the experiences of feed users, advertisers, and publishers," she said.

On-demand content management company SpringCM is moving from a direct sales model to a model that includes both direct and channel sales, reports eChannel Line.

With the launch of its new channel partner programme and the signing on of a handful of resellers, SpringCM has a recruitment goal of up to 100 resellers by the end of 2007. SpringCM provides enterprise content management (ECM) software in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.

According to Jeff Piper, VP of client services and partner development for SpringCM, the business model has become robust and serves the broad needs of the mid-market and enterprise departmental buyers, so it is time to start leveraging the sales expertise of the channel.

Dow Jones & Company has introduced Synaptica 6.4, its latest semantic Web-enabled knowledge organisation system for the enterprise, reports Earth Times.

Synaptica 6.4 simplifies and standardises vocabulary and metadata management in order to unlock business intelligence. "Computers can store, search and display enormous amounts of information, but until recently machines have not been able to understand the meaning of the content," says Dave Clarke, global taxonomy director at Dow Jones.

"Now, with the semantic Web being able to capture the meaning in a machine-readable way, users can discover latent information and make new connections between isolated content while benefiting from comprehensive and precise information recall," he adds.