Show's Over For Oprah Winfrey Come 2011

The new year is just days away. And 2011 is still out of sight.

But the woman who is ranked among the world's most powerful women, celebrities and media personalities has announced that her iconic TV talk show "The Oprah Winfrey Show" will be taken off the air come 2011.

The news spread like wildfire.

An emotional Oprah Winfrey said her show, currently syndicated in 145 countries, will end on its 25th season in 2011. The show was first broadcast in 1985.

Viewers were transfixed when she told them at the end of her live broadcast on Friday:

"I love this show. This show has been my life and I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye."

"Twenty five years feels right in my bones and it feels right in my spirit. It's the perfect number, the exact right time."

Winfrey, 55, was born into a life of poverty in Mississippi, but today, she is estimated to be worth US$2.7 billion, thanks to her talk show that transformed her in a cultural phenomenon.

She told her audience:

"These moments with you, our viewers, have enriched my life beyond measure...I certainly never could have imagined the yellow brick road of blessing that have led me to this moment with you."

Out of her many achievements, Winfrey is also credited with breaking down barriers as both a woman and an African-American.

Her own production company was launched in 1988. Winfrey named it Harpo -- her name spelt backwards.

She never looked back, her rise to fame and celebrity status was beyond doubt. Forbes magazine declared her the first female African-American billionaire in 2003.

"The Oprah Winfrey Show" show became the foundation that saw her empire  grow. It spans radio, books, magazines and the Internet.

Other TV celebrities, including popular counselor Dr Phil and chef Rachel Ray, saw their own careers launched, thanks to the Midas Touch of Oprah Winfrey.

The countdown to end the "Oprah Winfrey Show" starts now, according to the queen of daytime talk show.

Will Google Blink When Murdoch Gives The Finger?

If there's anyone who can give Google the finger with a defiant look, it has to be media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

In an interview on Nov 9, Monday, with Sky News political editor David Speers, the News Corporation supremo said he plans to take his media sites off the radar of search engines.


That's right. He has suggested that News Corp is likely to make its content invisible to users on search engines like Google when it launches its paid content strategy.

At a recent media meeting in Beijing, it was reported that Mr Murdoch told Internet search engines that they should pay for news content and claimed that they were "stealing" from news sites such as Sky News and Fox News which are under the umbrella of News Corp.

We know he has been talking about making people pay for online news but this is the first time Mr Murdoch actually mentioned it in the interview that he is slamming the door on free news.

Would that hurt online news readers? Don't think so. There are so many other news sources on the Internet. Traditional print media looks like a sunset industry.

Funny thing is for a guy in his position, Mr Murdoch appears to be astonishingly out of touch with the industry he's in and shows little knowledge about the Internet.

If you listen closely to what he's saying in the interview, you might feel flabbergasted by the way he's rambling about his new plans to capture "quality audience" who are willing to pay for online news from his media sites.



Makes you wonder whether he has lost it or is he dead serious that his empire is gonna strike back at Google. Would that make any difference to Big G?

And for the rest of us, we can go fly a kite! That's how it sounds like in his rambling.

Mr Murdoch has claimed that readers who randomly reach a page via search have little value to advertisers.

When it comes to making piles of moolah, who are we to question Mr Murdoch?

But. as we all know, newspaper revenues have crumbled and the recession has hit hard at the online ad market. Mr Murdoch's media empire, notwithstanding, is also taking some hard knocks revenue-wise.

What do you think? Will Mr Murdoch reach the end of the tunnel where there's light or is he heading in the wrong direction?

> What's eating the Associated Press?

Is Windows 7 The New Cool That Vista Isn't?

It seems like everyone, oh well, almost everyone living in the Windows world, are clapping for Windows 7 since its New York launch on Oct 22, Thursday.

If all the positive reports coming out in the last couple of days are anything to go by, Windows 7 will soon be cock of the walk as far as operating systems go.

And what's going to happen to that little pesky Windows Vista? Will it face termination eventually? Your guess is as good as mine. It's hasta la vista to Vista. Adios, amigo!

For Vista haters and XP diehards, the door is now open for them to make their moves.

According to UK reports, Windows 7 has hit the ground running and it is likely it will garner positive reception worldwide.

Now the main question for those who have stayed loyal to Windows XP is that can they get from XP to Windows 7 directly? The straight answer is no.

But, of course, there's a roundabout way for XP users to upgrade. First, they have to do backup copies of all their files and start over from scratch, doing a clean installation of Windows 7. Ideally, 4 gigs of RAM is recommended although 2 gigs is the least to be able to run Windows 7 but it probably will be sluggish.

As for Vista users, who have had enough of the bug-infested operating system, it will be a breeze to make the switch to Windows 7.

According to Yobie Benjamin, a self-proclaimed "perpectual geek", who writes at SFGate.com's City Brights blog, moving from Windows Vista to Windows 7 was a "surprisingly painless process."

Benjamin claims he's not Microsoft's biggest fan but Windows 7 really had him bowled over. In his blog post, he is saying that "Windows 7 is darn good...very good."

If you are still not sure about moving house, Tony Bradley, in his post at PCWorld.com, has five reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 7. Check it out.

According to information on the Microsoft website, Windows 7 is designed to help your laptop battery last longer.

"For starters, Windows 7 runs with fewer background activities so your PC processor doesn't work as hard and draws less power. Other innovations include less power-hungry DVD playback (handy on long flights), automatic screen dimming, powering off unused ports, and a more accurate battery-life indicator. So you'll be less likely to be surprised by a dead battery."

A CNet.com review of Windows 7 concludes that the new OS is more than what Vista should have been but questions whether it is enough for people to finally abandon Windows XP.

We'll wait and see whether the hype machine is sucking us in like the Vista campaign before or maybe this is the real thing.

Is MySpace Looking Like A Lame Duck?

The news coming out these days about MySpace is quite depressing. The social networking website that was thought to be a smart buy by media mogul Rupert Murdoch now seems to be heading for a freefall.

Recent statistics released by Internet monitoring and web analytics companies are painting a bleak picture of MySpace which was sold for US$580 million in 2005 to News Corporation, the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises.

The rise and rise of competitors, Facebook and Twitter, are making MySpace look like a lame duck. The site has dropped to No. 2 position, overtaken by Facebook whose 150 million active users in April last year overshadowed MySpace's 130 million users, according web data research firm comScore.

Last month, Facebook reached the milestone of 300 million users. MySpace, it seems, is looking at the receding back of Facebook as Mark Zuckerberg's brainchild gallops into the distance.

According to web monitoring firm Hitwise, MySpace had 66.8 percent of the market around this time, but that percentage continues to plunge with the MySpace management now attempting to arrest the decline with a makeover and focusing on being an entertainment portal.

Conversely, as reported by Hitwise, Facebook increased its share of all the visits to social-networking sites from 19 percent in September 2008 to 58.6 this year -- a more than 190 percent increase.

The October numbers released by web analytics company Compete.com show that MySpace's U.S. traffic has dropped from 55.6 million unique visitors in August this year to 50.2 million in September. That's about 20 percent of its U.S. traffic being shed off since June.

According to social media blog Mashable, the continuation of MySpace's downward trend could see it completely fade away in terms of relevancy as a social networking site.

The micro-blogging website Twitter is the next hot item on the Web. Twitter's share jumped from 0.15 percent to 1.84 percent, and the service now ranks as the fourth largest social network.

There's a lesson to be learnt from MySpace's ailment.

People have complained that MySpace pages take forever to load. The pages look tacky. The average user is 15 and animated gifs seem to be the rage on most pages which also send a lot of people running for the hills.

Overall, there's too much noise going on at MySpace, giving the impression that quality is not the norm in this neck of the woods. Eventually, it's now taking its toll on MySpace.

"MySpace is like the messy teenager's room whereas Facebook is where people will find their mum, cousins and friends hanging out. It's like a hub," says brand consultant Phil Edelin of Wolff Olins.

Detractors feel that the management did not do much to improve or maintain the site. MySpace didn't bother fixing problems faced by users until they realized it was hemorrhaging users who were packing up and moving to Facebook.

In the end, is it a case of too little, too late?