Prezi is now gaining traction and according to CEO Peter Arvai, the platform now has over 10 million users—and counting. What’s even more fascinating than the engaging presentations created by the software is the fact that the company has doubled its user base in just 6 months. There are even plans to make it possible for uploading PowerPoint slides into the software for manipulation.

This addition when it happens will attract even more users. This new push to increase user base isn’t the only driving force behind the company. It seems there is a genuine desire to inspire creativity and engagement.

According to Peter Arvai, “With Prezi, people inspire change – in their schools, at the podium, and in the boardroom. There is a prezi created every second and the new PowerPoint import feature makes this evolution of collaborative, interactive storytelling accessible to all. It’s time to think outside the slide.”

With such enthusiasm and growing band of users, the phrase ‘death by PowerPoint’ may soon lose its luster.

Here are the top 40 positions for the two weeks ending April 29,2012 :

1.Toys.xxx    $125,000
2.Indi.com    $115,000
3.Sommerhus.dk  $114,625
4.Bohe.com    $85,000
5.Hot.net    $74,277
6.Geschenkideen.de   $65,500
7.PrinterCartridges.com    $60,000
8.GameGlobe.com    $50,000
9.Seri.com    $45,000
10.Zuke.com    $40,188
11.Rover.com    $40,000
12.GreenJuice.com    $35,000
13.MyLinks.com    $35,000
14.DiscountEyeglasses.com    $34,200
15.Hadise.com    $30,000
16.RaceNet.com    $29,412
17.BuildAmerica.com    $27,500
18.Doctor.tv    $25,000    J
19.ZAQ.com    $25,000
20.AssetProtectionSystem.com    $24,998
21.TD.org    $24,900
22.Plan-Net.com    $23,580
23.LetterArt.com    $23,500
24.BathroomRemodel.com    $22,500
25.TreeRemoval.com    $22,500
26.Atha.com    $20,000s
27.Beenz.com    $20,000
28.Chewey.com    $20,000
29.DirectCremation.com    $20,000
30.PinMyRide.com    $20,000
31.TorontoLimos.com    $20,000
32.Circus.es    $19,650
33.IQN.com    $18,000
34.Zatan.com    $17,410
35.Gamezen.com    $17,250
36.Weve.com    $16,200
37.Weddin.gs    $16,192
38.DigitalPrinting.co.uk    $16,119
39.CoverSure.com    $16,000
40.MITX.com    $16,000

Most of the domain names were .com domain names that sold for the highest amounts this week. The company that led in sells was Sedo.com which sold 12 of the top 40 positions. The next top company was Aftneric which only sold 3 of the top 40, but still is noteworthy. None of these above facts are too surprising since .com domain names usually dominate the sales and Sedo is usually the company that does so.

Sedo is one of the most popular and successful domain name companies on the Internet, with Afternic and Go Daddy being some runner ups. Just add “.com” onto each of these company names to check out their websites. Check out the Domain Name Journal weekly for more updates about top sales and companies.

The social media themed healthcare service allows patients to search via their Zip Codes for available doctors and make appointments directly via their Android, iPhone or Blackberry devices. So far the service is available in 18 cities across the US and attracts over 1.2 million patients each month.

The service is very popular among users not least because typically patients get connected with a doctor within 24 to 72 hours. This beats the national average of 3 weeks which most patients have to deal with across the country. ZocDoc also gives insights into the background of doctors, and patients can browse a doctors credentials, education background—even what they look like.

ZocDoc also has a comprehensive ratings system so the best practitioners stand out and naturally get all the business. All in all the service seems to be spot on in terms of benefits and the fact that 1.2 million patients have voted for ZocDoc is proof enough. It will be interesting to see if Google decides once again to have stab at online healthcare.

Would you use a service like ZocDoc? Let us know using the comments below.

PayPal Here is no different from Square and lets small businesses handle mobile payments via Android and iOS applications. The only noticeable difference is the credit card processing apparatus which interacts with the mobile device via a headphone jack.

So far the service has had a warm reception among users and PayPal is reporting that it saw over 1,000 signups in the first 24 hours of launch. The service hasn’t had large-scale roll out yet and so far is only available in the US, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia. To date the service has just over 200,000 users and countless more have joined the wait list.

How things will look in a few months competition-wise is anyone’s guess. PayPal has played the price cutting card by charging 0.05% less for its processing fees and Square will have to match this given the tremendous leverage that PayPal has already. Even with the first-movers advantage that Square has, it will still need to build momentum among small and medium sized business owners in order to keep PayPal Here at bay.

We now know that Twitter really has around 140 million active users. This after Satya Patel, Twitter’s vice president of products made clear Twitter’s ambition to grow the user base to a staggering 2 billion users. He made the announcement of intent with a backdrop of Twitter seeing just over 340 million tweets a day from its 140 million users.

Scaling Twitter will require some rethinking about how the platform operates because at present many users complain that Twitter is not one of the easiest social networking platforms to use. This has occurred largely because Twitter has had to introduce new functions into the architecture in order to accommodate advertisers. Indeed Patel seems to agree with the need to keep thing simple, saying that, “We add via subtraction and look at how to reduce the number of steps to get value from the product. Consistency across devices is also important — you shouldn’t have to relearn the product for each device.”

My guess is that Twitter won’t break the 500 million active user mark anytime soon and it definitely won’t break a billion users before 2015. Unless Twitter can tap into emerging markets the way Facebook has, it doesn’t stand a chance of reaching its lofty goals.

Sedo recently announced its sales for the week. In total there were over 700 domain names sold that brought the overall sales total to almost $2 million for the week! This was a huge week for Sedo; a lot of their sales weeks result in over $1 million in sales, but this was definitely on the higher end of things.

One of the top domain names that sold was DirectCremation.com which sold for $20,000. Almost half of all the sales were purchased through the “buy it now” feature.

Below is a list of all the domain names Sedo sold during this week with a price of $2,000 and up:

Check out the company for yourself at Sedo.com!

According to new figures from a Bloomberg report and spam expert Richi Jennings, text message spam is the fastest growing sector among spammers and increased 45% in 2011 to a staggering 4.5 billion messages.

In most cases you have little to worry about if you don’t respond to a message or click on outgoing links, but doing either can be potentially costly. In some cases responding to text messages can add charges to your bill and if you are unfortunate enough to click on a link, you may infect your phone with malware—which then siphons off your personal details and give you a potentially bigger headache.

The fight against text message spam is still in its infancy and doesn’t have the sophistication that is seen on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. For those affected by text message spam the industry message is ‘beware’. If you own a iPhone 4S and get a text message promising a iPhone 5, don’t fall for it. Doing so could end up costing you a lot more than just your phone.

Are you suffering from text message spam? Let us know what you are doing about it using the comments below.

This of course means that SEO oriented companies will be in high demand, hence why SEOmoz is looking to step up its game. The SEO start-up announced recently that it had acquired $18 million in VC funding from the Foundry Group and Ignition Partners. The first thing you’ll notice is that the amount is fairly huge; the second thing to note is that this funding round is a Series B. Together these two important points point to an upward trajectory for SEO services and software—two things that SEOmoz has made quite a name for itself in.

SEOmoz had only received $1.1 million in funding to this point so this $18 million is big news and shows big intent. Managing Director for the Foundry Group, Brad Feld seems genuinely excited about the investment. And according to Feld, “SEOmoz is one of those companies that you just know is going to do big things.”

The excitement is backed by solid performance numbers because for 2012, SEOmoz is expecting sales of $18 – $20 million.

The battle against Panda and Penguins is well and truly on.

Some of the factors that affect whether or not people are using that internet have to do with income level, education level, and age. A lot of elderly people do not get online due to not understanding how, being behind in the times, and they have no need for such when they’ve lived a full life without such “conveniences”. People with low income may not be able to afford these technologies and people with lower education levels consequently might have lower income or do not know how to operate and can’t afford these things.

Here are the top 5 reasons people in this demographic chart cited as reasons why they do not go online:

“31% said they were just not interested, 12% don’t own a computer, 10% said that it was too expensive, 9% said it was too difficult, and 7% said it was a waste of time.”

This phenomenon is called the “digital desert” where technological advances do not reach in this country. This may be hard for many to imagine but it is interesting to think about how these people’s lives must not be fast paced, no social media drama, more personal interactions, etc. This type of lifestyle might have its drawbacks but life was without these things for centuries before people became addicted to Facebook and their smart phones and people got along just fine, so it also has some benefits as well.

Pinterest is of course a social/virtual pinboard, but it relies heavily on Facebook to get people talking and sharing. One way in which it does this is through its own Facebook application, which according to the latest figures is used by over 8.3 million people each month.

The figure comes from some number crunching done by AppData which also found that daily active users (DAU) for the Pinterest Facebook App is also down from the 12 million or so DAUs recorded back in March 2012. This decline whilst noticeable is still considered healthy; Pinterest recently put the clamps on spammers who setup fake accounts on the platform in order to make money.

Purging aside though, Pinterest still has solid numbers and aside from the people that discover and interact through Facebook, it still has solid interest from people who access the site through email referrals. Indeed this latter medium is quite a powerful way to grow Pinterest hence why after all these months it is still operates on an ‘invite-only basis’.

Are you using the Pinterest Facebook App? Share your experience with us in the comments below.

Of course, large numbers have to translate into something tangible and Facebook looks to have that covered too. According to the amended S-1 filing revenues for the first quarter of 2012 was $1.058 billion—a 44.7% climb on revenue figures for the corresponding quarter in 2011.

The more users Facebook has the more ad inventory it can sell to advertisers and with current user numbers and revenue trends, each of the 901 million users may very be worth up to $4.81 to Facebook. Little wonder then that Facebook is trying to tap into other markets to push its user base well past that glorious billion. It probably won’t do that before its IPO but the writing is on the wall and by the end of 2012, Facebook should well and truly have 1 billion active users.

Do you think Facebook will break the 1 billion active user mark by the end of 2012? Let us know below.

But that is precisely what Andreessen Horowitz (HW), the tech VC was able to do with its investment in Instagram. The $1 billion payday that came Instagram’s way via the Facebook acquisition means that HW saw a ROI of 31,200%. These are Stunning returns by any stretch, which is why HW took to the blogosphere to make some noise about it.

HW was criticised heavily for its investment in Instagram and many analyst felt that the VCs side investment with another competing App was a bad move. Even the New York Times wade in on the issue saying that the decision taken by the partners at HW to fund competing App PicPlz, “was a calculated bet against Instagram and it left Mr. Systrom livid.”

General partner at the VC firm, Ben Horowitz blasted back at the criticism saying that, “Ordinarily, when someone criticizes me for only making 312 times my money, I let the logic of their statement speak for itself.”

This very public confrontation has perhaps added more sensationalism to the Facebook deal and many detractors of the deal are quick to point out that HW, Systrom and other players in Instagram simply got lucky. For every Instagram success they add, there are thousands of failures.

The package film.tv, filme.tv, and filmy.tv were all three sold together for the price of $65,000 which is a good price for the 3 domain names.

An official releases from Google states that the ad credit will be available to over 500,000 businesses, however, a spokesperson did make note that the 500K is not a set figure and so greater or fewer businesses could get in.

Getting in could mean a chance to capitalize on Google’s new push to monetize YouTube videos. Unlike Google AdWords which charge advertisers per click, video ads will be charged based on when the video is viewed. You might have noticed video ads running in the middle of YouTube content in recent months; this is because the experiment started back in December 2011. The products official launch is scheduled for May though, and this is why Google is splashing out the cash.

It’s not clear as yet how businesses qualify or get their hands on the ad credits, but it’s already established that the ad credits will be available in a $75 denomination. As is usual with Google ad credits, it may only apply (potentially) to US businesses and one will need some sort of invitation to participate. Still, $75 to try a video had isn’t half bad, so those who get a chance should take it and run.

The social networking giant has inked a deal that will see Microsoft transfer 650 of the 925 patents it [Microsoft] acquired from AOL just last month. The deal seems to have a lot more than just an upfront cash benefit for Microsoft who will retain licenses for all 650 patents that are now being transferred to Facebook.

According to a statement by Microsoft’s executive VP, Brad Smith, “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction.”

The quick handover of the patents does raise some questions however, not least because Facebook could have acquired these patents itself. The wheeling and dealing by Microsoft is perhaps a likely explanation for the way things have played out. After all, few tech companies have the spending power that Microsoft has and so perhaps only it could have gained access to AOL to secure such a deal.

Still, these patents are obviously quite useful and so it will be interesting to see in what ways they are employed in the Facebook development apparatus. When they do present themselves, it should add some powerful features and functions to Facebook’s architecture.

The talk is as much about the $5.5 billion as it is about Xerox’s growth over the last year. Q1 revenues are up 2%; and services continue to grow despite a sluggish economy to over 10%.

Naturally analysts are quite bullish on Xerox stock and the company’s CEO and Chairman Ursula Burns had plenty to say about the performance. Burns said in a release that, “Services now represents more than half of our total revenue and will continue to be the growth engine of our company as we expand our BPO offerings and strengthen our leadership in managed print services. Our first-quarter results reflect the successful execution of our strategy: accelerate services, grow our install base of Xerox color products, and efficiently operate our business to deliver strong earnings and shareholder value.”

With the economy expected to get better as the year wears on, one can expect revenues to increase at Xerox. And at the current pace, the company could easily make $22 billion for the year.

Are you surprised Xerox is doing so well despite the wider gloom in the economy? Share your thoughts with us below.

Below is the list of other notable domain names that were sold through Sedo for the week ending April 23rd. There were almost 850 domain names sold altogether during this week.These are just the .com domain name sales, as there were other URL endings additionally:

Today more than 50% of people rely on social media and other online sources for their breaking news. 46% of people get their news online at least 3 times a week, and more and more people are using smartphones to tap into the world around them. Not surprisingly, the top social media sites dominate the delivery of news and according to a study conducted by Schools.com; Facebook is responsible for 59.5% of the news delivered. It is followed in distant second by Twitter which delivers around 19.9% of breaking news. Youtube rounds out the top 3 with just over 12.7%.

But it’s not just that social media is tapped by those seeking news, it is fast becoming the medium for people who want to break news. The announcement of the royal wedding for instance was broken on Twitter; so too were news of the deaths of Whitney Houston and Osama Bin Laden.

TV, newspaper and radio are still potent, just waning. In another 20 years or so, almost all news will be delivered online.

What’s your favorite source for late breaking news? Share it with us using the comments below.