Quick linkage - Friday 1 June

There’s been a lot of news etc that I’ll have to revisit over the weekend, but for today wanted to link to these in case you’ve been laying low for the last two days:

• Australian online expenditure for Q1 - up 51% over same time last year, driven esp by search & directories which jumped 85%. The Oz article here.
• Couple of new products out:
  - At Google’s developer day yester, they announced Gears - which lets web apps be taken offline - this is great (SMH article here) Over last coupla days they also announced Mapplets - widgets for maps basically - and Street View for maps for some cities - the latter is esp pretty cool. 
  - Microsoft this week announced Surface, a potentially game-changing technology that is based on the literal drag and drop tactile use of a computer screen-cum-tabletop.

Update: One thing I only just discovered, worth pointing out - as you know, the IAB awarded the contract for measurement to PwC late last year, and the Q1 figures are the first report PwC have prepared. Unlike the ABVS, PwC doesn’t include estimates from those publishers who refuse to disclose their figures  (Google because of its share of search, is the exception).