Forbes magazine has released its latest Forbes 500 list of the wealthiest people in the United States and guess who’s back on top? Yep, it’s Bill Gates.

Interestingly, TechCrunch has distilled the list into the richest people in technology. Topping the list is, of course, Bill Gates, while the second richest person in technology - and the third richest overall - is Larry Ellison. (Are we back in the 90s or what?)

Seven of the richest people in technology are also among the richest 20 individuals overall.

Here’s the top ten:

1. Bill Gates (Microsoft): $57 billion
2. Larry Ellison (Oracle): $27 billion
3. Michael Dell (Dell): $17.3 billion
4. Paul Allen (Microsoft): $16 billion
5. Sergey Brin (Google): $15.9 billion
6. Larry Page (Google): $15.8 billion
7. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft): $15 billion
8. Jeff Bezos (Amazon): $8.7 billion
9. Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.): $6.8 billion
10. Pierre Omidyar (eBay): $6.3 billion

Source: Don Reisinger, “Who Are the Richest People In Tech?”, TechCrunch, September 18, 2008

Introducing Gospelr, a microblogging service for Christians to share Christian messages.

Based on Twitter, Gospelr is aimed at encouraging Christians to post thoughts, ideas, words of encouragement, prayer requests, daily scripture readings and so on. Meanwhile, Gospelr has gained Twitter API source parameter approval which means that whenever you tweet something, you’ll see an update on Twitter saying ‘from Gospelr.com’.

Gospelr also works with TweetDeck and other applications that let users syndicate material to Twitter.

Source: Don Reisinger, “Gospelr: Twitter For Christians”, TechCrunch, September 18, 2008

If David Pogue’s article in The New York Times is to be believed, Microsoft’s new Zune digital music player beats Apple’s iPod hands down when it comes to music downloading and discovery.

While it lacks the multi-media features of the iPod, the Zune includes: a built-in FM radio player which also allows you to capture songs you like; over 100 channels including themed channels, weekly playlists such as the Billboard Top 40, hip-hop, children’s music, opera and self-creating channels based on your listening habits; as well as the ability to beam songs to nearby Zunes.

The only caveat is that many of these added features are only available if you pay $15 per month for a ZunePass.

Source: David Pogue, “A New Zune for Serious Music Fans”, The New York Times, September 18, 2008

Hillcrest Laboratories has convinced the International Trade Commission to investigate Hillcrest’s allegations that the Nintendo Company infringed four patents in making its Wii video game console.

Hillcrest, based in Rockville, Md., has motion-detecting technology that enables users to select items on a screen by waving a hand-held device. This is very much like the motion-sensing controller in the Wii that lets users direct on-screen play e.g. by swinging a golf club in a simulated golf game.

The International Trade Commission has the power to ban products from the United States if they are made with infringing technology. It’s not clear how that impacts on Nintendo, a company based in Kyoto, Japan…

Source: Reuters, “Japan: Nintendo’s Patents Challenged”, The New York Times, September 18, 2008

I’ve always said that I’d never rent an email list. I’ve just heard too many horror stories of minuscule conversion rates… wasted money… and spam complaints. But an article in MarketingSherpa has made me rethink… I’m not sold, but I won’t say ‘never’…

MarketingSherpa provides marketers with 5 mistakes to avoid and 10 questions to ask when considering using a rented email list. Check out the article below (free account required). My major take-outs are that, when deciding whether or not to rent a list, you are wise to:

1. Pay more for a quality list i.e. one that is highly targeted and which contains recently acquired leads;
2. Ensure the list is fresh. As a rule of thumb, email lists decay at the rate of 2.5 percent per month. So if you have a list of 1,000 emails that were acquired a month ago, around 25 of those email addresses will no longer work.
3. Don’t overbuy a list. Buying a huge list almost guarantees that you’ll end up paying for large numbers of people who won’t constitute your target market and won’t respond to your email. A typical response rate for a quality list is 1-2 percent, so you’ll probably be better off buying fewer names and achieving that kind of response rate, than renting a much larger list and getting a fraction of that response rate.
4. Buy a ‘multi-channel list’ - one where you get names, emails, phone numbers and postal addresses - rather than an email-only list. A multi-channel list tend to be of much higher quality and to generate a much higher response rate, even as high as 5-10 percent.
5. Ensure the list includes only people who opted in (and ideally confirmed their subscription).

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Time to Reconsider Rented Lists? 10 Questions to Ask, 5 Mistakes to Avoid to Ensure Freshness, Validity”, September 18, 2008

According to comScore, Google’s share of search engine usage rose to 63 percent in August. This compares to 61.9 percent in July.

Not surprisingly, Google took share as Yahoo and Microsoft lost share. Yahoo’s share of search dropped from 20.5 percent in July to 19.6 percent in August. Microsoft’s share dropped from 8.9 percent in July to 8.3 percent in August.

Source: Peter Kafka, “comScore August Report Card: Google Gaining, Of Course”, September 18, 2008

Despite scrutiny from the European Commission… objections by major advertising and publishing bodies… and an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Google and Yahoo will launch their advertising deal on October 11, 2008.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive officer, said the companies will press ahead with the deal in the absence of any objection from regulators. The deal allows Google to display ads against Yahoo search results.

Many advertisers and others are worried that it will lead to higher search ad prices overall.

Sources: Michael Liedtke, “Google CEO won’t delay Yahoo deal any further”, Yahoo Finance, September 18, 2008