Digital Buzz at Stormfront Productions

I'm sure the average reader of The Digital Buzz has been confused and greatly saddened as of late due to our recent inactivity. In all honesty, I too, felt the effects of the waning attention on the blog and couldn't stand it anymore. So here we are back with a bang. Today, I'm writing you on a topic that isn't only receiving current media attention, but is the heart of the media itself.

The looming election, a phrase oft spouted when in dire economic or political straits (or both as may be the current case) has politicos worldwide debating yet again. The United States presidential election is important to the world economy as it represents much of the policy to be administered over the course of the following four years, and so it's almost as if it's an election for the world populace. People everywhere tune in to see what the latest breaking developments are in a race that has lasted nearly two full years.

The developments in recent months are those of attack campaigns. Rather than discussing issues of domestic or foreign policy or evaluating the economical crisis at length both Republican and Democratic parties have turned from their infighting to focus all that usual negative attention on one another. McCain's campaign and running mate have likened candidate Obama to be a Muslim and supporter of a terrorist while the Obama campaign has discussed McCain's political ties with Bush and oil and likened a McCain-Palin administration to the current one, which is currently holds one of the lowest approval ratings in the nation's history.

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, recently held a talk with various magazine executives as part of a broader event organized by the search giant for the execs. During his discussion, he spoke on such topics as Brand relevance in the clouded world of the internet, successful search engine marketing (which in his discussion is related to the first point) and the future of for-profit journalism.

Brand relevance was a major speaking point for Schmidt as he explained it to be the necessary cure to the unnecessary evil that is the majority of available sites on the web. By creating a strong brand readily recognized by the public, a company gains a great deal of wiggling room. They are more likely to be considered relevant and even during times of economic downturn a strong brand can survive or even prosper (just ask the Ritz cracker company which developed out the Great Depression in the early 20th century).

Microsoft recently approved President Steve Ballmer to take on up to $40 billion in debt for stock buybacks. The company plans on taking advantage of the fiscal difficulties currently being experienced by the market to boost its dividends and profits. The company's quarterly dividends are being raised from 11 cents to 13 cents, an 18 percent increase; they will be made payable on December 11 to stockholders on record as of November 20.

The board approved this loan in wake of percentage rates sitting at around 2 percent after receiving the two highest credit scores available from Standard and Poor's Rating Services and Moody's Investors Service Inc. Short term loans in the software and technology industry continue despite other market sectors feeling an economic pinch. This buyback plan is the second $40 billion buyback by Microsoft in the last 5 years.

Remember the old yahoo? The red and white, overcrowded web page with more icons and links to search than you could possibly get to in a full day has been redesigned a few times since then, and will now be joined by a new design currently under development by the webmasters at Yahoo. At least this is the announcement the company made recently as they began offering the test design out to small groups of people.

The photo released for the new page shows a left-hand column which now links to popular Yahoo services shows a column allowing for user-picked, customizable applications, and the site also boasts the ability to check other email accounts such as G-mail and AOL. While the site itself is the first redesign in two years, as I've written recently in regards to Facebook, it is incredibly important not to upset your viewer base by radically uprooting their perception of your site. Facebook has been experiencing a mild backlash for their new roll out, and it may take some time and effort before that unrest goes away.

On September 23, T-Mobile and Google will be announcing details about the new phone they have been developing. The phone is expected to rival competitors such as Palm, Research in Motion, Nokia and Apple's iPhone for browsing and general usability. Although the phone itself won't be released at least until next month, the pricing and plans are among the expected details to be discussed Tuesday.

The phone will be using Google's Android operating system software and manufactured by HTC. One major marketing factor offered in this new technology is the availability for designers to make applications. Google expects to develop their own set of applications, but have opened the door to thousands of app designers. The phone is said to be of a touch screen like the iPhone, but with a slide-out full keyboard as well.