Picnik Defies Recessionary Woes

In 2008, Picnik broke barriers with its new Sandbox tab allowing developers to create and contribute their own personally developed tools through Picnik.com — making Picnik one of the only online photo editors to allow other developers and users to contribute new, unique features to the photo editing process.

Additionally, Picnik established partnerships with companies like QOOP, MySpace, Photobox, SmugMug, Epson, among others, and also made a number of new company hires in key creative and development areas. [24×7]

Portland-based Guide to the Web Is What It’s About
AboutUs.org has been founded as a place with millions of editable pages about other websites. The Portland-based Guide to the Web is being billed as the site to learn more about a Website, promote a Website, and lists the people and contact information behind it — all in Wiki-editable style.

Everyone is welcome to edit their profile pages themselves for free, but for business owners who would like an enhanced page to boost their site’s visibility, the directory offers an article creation service. View the SpotlightUs Pages their team of writers has created so on thw Spotlight Articles page.

In order to protect the integrity of the resource and to engage with fellow editors, AboutUs is committed to reviewing every edit made to its more than 12 million pages. The firm recently landed $2.5 million in venture capital from Voyager Capital. [24×7]

Microsoft Trimming Sails Though Big Layoffs Unlikely
Microsoft will embark on a significant cost-cutting initiative in 2009, which might begin as early as this month, to offset a global slowdown in sales. However, sources told Jim Goldman of CNBC, the cuts will largely be handled through attrition and the non-renewal of contract employees, rather than through a rumored, sweeping layoff.

Rumors of a broad workforce reduction at the world’s largest software maker have been swirling since a blog post last week purported to show that Microsoft was preparing to lay off as many as 15,000 employees, or 17 percent of its workforce. A Microsoft source tells Goldman that the speculation is “grossly exaggerated,” but added that “any company not paying careful attention to headcount in a climate like this is nuts.”|

One of the units already seeing cutbacks is Microsoft’s sagging browser business. A report in the Seattle Times says 180 contract workers were told last month that their services would not be renewed. Just yesterday, researcher Net Applications reported that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser registered 68 percent market share in December, down from 74 percent in May. [24×7]