Internet giant Yahoo has decided to sue Facebook, for unspecified damages, for the infringement of 10 or more of its technology patents.

Earlier this year, Yahoo warned Facebook that it would seek legal action if it did not license between 10 and 20 patents on various technologies.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in California makes a case that Yahoo innovated on several fronts that are now common features of the social networking site including messaging, news feed generation, social commenting advertising display, preventing click fraud and privacy controls.

Part of the lawsuit reads, “Facebook’s entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo’s patented social networking technology.” That’s quite an accusation.

The complaint also reads that Yahoo was founded 10 years before the launch of Facebook in 2004 which has since become one of the most “widely trafficked sites on the internet” and that that growth has been based, in large part, on the innovations of Yahoo.

Facebook issued the following statement, “We’re disappointed that Yahoo’s effort to engage with us was limited to a few short phone calls and that we continue to learn of new developments about a long-time partner through the press. We will defend ourselves vigorously against these puzzling actions.”

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Livebids.co.za, a new internet startup that will be launching on the 19th March by local company name Livebids Auctions PTY (Ltd) aims to shake up the SA online retail market and change the way consumers buy and sell online.

Livebids co-founders Rory Vollmer and Paul von Hoesslin from Cape Town, first started creating Livebids.co.za with the idea to develop an online market place that would help buyers and sellers fully connect in trade while being rewarded.

Rory who had been in the online auctioneering game of selling for a few years already, approached Paul, an already close friend for over seven years back in 2009, and the idea grew from there.

This unique online social market place offers three selling and buying formats that include Auctions, Pay Per Bid and Group Buying that that together will differentiate Livebids’s service from other pay-per-bid sites already in SA. While the first model is based on the traditional format where items are sold to the highest bidder and group buying is similar to that currently utilised by Groupon, Pay Per Bid rounds up the service as the only site to offer all three models on one platform.

In addition, Livebids rewards all buyers and sellers that utilise the service via the Pay Per Bid model whereby Livebids pays sellers to sell on the site and buyers earn points that can be exchanged for bids. Pay Per Bid aims to empower online sellers by giving them an opportunity to make massive profits.

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Popular file sharing service Dropbox has recently introduced and rolled-out the new design of its web-based service, announced on its official blog, that it has been working on over the past few weeks.

Anyone who signs into Dropbox will immediately notice a simpler and more powerful web service that aims to provide a more intuitive layout and better accommodate the increasing amount of images users are choosing to store there. Dropbox engineer Trevor Berg writes, “One of our main goals was to slim down dropbox.com and focus on the star of the page: your stuff.”

To achieve this, Dropbox has begun by putting all the tools needed at the user’s fingertips with a new and more compact action bar which allow them to continue to sort and manage their files. In addition, a new right click menu has been added for a quick and compact way to manage files and optimise window space.

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Mercado Libre meaning “free market” in Spanish and eBay’s Latin American partner is an online auction and e-commerce site based in Argentina. Established in 1999 their brand new office space was recently completed by architecural and design firm Contract Argentina.

Overall the relatively open-plan space is clean and uncluttered achieved by a combination of simple white furniture, wooden benches and glass screen dividers. The space has been designed to create working spaces for different numbers of employees. Large boardrooms are ideal for more formal meetings while smaller boardrooms provide space for group projects or brainstorming sessions. Spaces divided with glass screens holding benches, tables and chairs serve as smaller or even single working areas. The office manages to create a sense of privacy and transparency simultaneously.

Colourful wall illustrations add an element of fun and creativity with comfortable couches, cushioned benches and pillows offering the prefect spots for chilling. The cafeteria, filled with large white couches, wooden tables and benches and a flat-screen TV creates the perfect communal area for a break.

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Recently launched interactive website, My Social Strand, turns your Facebook profile into a personalized infographic. Created by non profit organisation Be The Match that offers a unique way for people to donate bone marrow, it aims to highlight each individual’s uniqueness in a fun and socially interactive way which, according to Be The Match also emphasizes the uniqueness of each individual as a possible bone marrow match.

Once a user connects to the Facebook app through the Be The Match website, and answers a few simple questions, the  personalized infographic will feature information such as how your social sharing behaviours compare to your Facebook friends’, how your interests compare to other respondents, how long you’ve been alive, the most popular song the day you were born (which plays in the infographic) and how many other people share your name.

Be The Match didn’t create the project to teach the public about the need for bone marrow donors suffering from leukemia and other associated diseases but rather it hopes that people will be curious about how their own personalized infographic will turn out and in the process will decide to register for the bone marrow database.

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According to data from StatCounter via Phandroid, in addition to becoming the most dominant mobile device in the world, Google has now overtaken Opera to become the most popular mobile web browser as well, over the last year (February 2011 – February 2012).

Figures from the online measurement service show that February saw use of Android’s Robot browser overtake Opera to take the top spot for the first time.

The chart below, which plots the use of mobile Internet browsers over the last twelve months, indicates significant growth from Android which had only just overtaken BlackBerry to fourth place one year ago.

Opera, which is particularly popular in both Asia and Africa, now sits in second place having been overtaken by Android and the firm will look to increase its share with the newly released developer beta version of its Opera Mini Browser that aims to provide users with a more advanced and social mobile Web experience. Although the Scandinavian company does not own its own devices like Google, its popularity comes from it being preloaded onto other firm’s feature phones like Samsung.

StatCounter breaks out usage of the iPhone and iPod Touch, which might otherwise see Apple’s browser rank first. However, considering the advantage that Android has over Apple with more than 300 million Android devices world wide, an increase of of 250%, the fact that the iPhone ranks so closely shows that its users are proportionally more likely to browse the Web than Android owners.

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Take a look at the top 5 most popular posts for the month of February on BandwidthBlog. From hotly anticipated upcoming gadgets and features to local data pricing and free Wi-Fi this is what you enjoyed reading the most.

1. Apple to announce the iPad 3 next month:

Planning to buy an iPad? BandwidthBlog’s Minnaar Pieters advises that you wait until the much anticipated iPad 3 is launched in March and makes it way to South African shores and what to expect from Apple’s latest offering.

2. Microsoft to remove the start button from Windows:

Leaked screenshots from the Windows 8 Customer Preview build shows that the familiar Orb button found in Windows 7 will be missing this time round.

3. Vodacom slashes data pricing in their latest promotion:

In early February, Vodacom announced that it was slashing data pricing by up to 60% with a new promotion running from 7 February to 6 May. If you’re still interested, read the post for more details.

4. Apple’s worth now more than Google and Microsoft combined:

With Apple’s stock price jumping up in the first week of the month, it’s worth of $456 billion makes it worth more than its rivals Google and Microsoft, combined.

5. Free Wi-Fi for Stellenbosch:

Made possible by an initiative by Stellenbosch, MXit and the University of Stellenbosch, the small town is planning to provide free Wi-Fi Internet access for all. A great step for locl internet access in SA and in boosting the economy of the Western Cape town.

Read January’s Top 5 most popular posts here. 

Digital marketing isn’t a fad – it’s the future. And although it may be a notoriously difficult task to project the future; the most telling variable is what’s happening in the present.

Look around you and you’ll notice that the world is connected, communicating and constantly clicking. There’s no reason to believe that the demographic cohort that will follow Generation Y, will be any different. In fact, the next generation will be the first that cannot conceive a world that isn’t defined and enabled by the Internet, mobile devices and online social networking.

Still not convinced? The following infographic created by ROI Media presents an overview of the digital landscape, and the changes pointing towards the need for social media marketing in commerce and the likelihood that it won’t be going anywhere any time soon.

View the infographic after the jump…

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