Lattelecom posts 23% rise in internet user base

Latvian telecommunications service provider Lattelecom's permanent internet users base has jumped by 23 percent during the first six months of this year, to 168,700 subscribers. Lattelecom has the largest number of customers in the Riga region and Jurmala, with over 77,800 subscribers. The number of internet subscriptions outside the Riga region has climbed by 19 percent year-on-year. The regions where the company registered the most significant increase in the number of users are Jekabpils and Talsi, where the internet subscriber base rose by 31 percent. The cities with the largest internet subscriber bases are Jelgava with over 10,000, followed by Daugavpils and Liepaja. The growth of Lattelecom's internet subscriber base outside the Riga region was mainly generated by extended computer availability, increased internet content quality, as well as the launch of the Lattelecom TV service.

Facebook heads MySpace in unique visitors

Facebook, the fast-growing social network, has taken a significant lead over MySpace in visitor numbers for the first time, according to one popular measure of internet traffic. Facebook attracted more than 123m unique visitors in May, an increase of 162 per cent over the same period last year according to ComScore, a company that monitors websites. That compared with 114.6m unique visitors at MySpace, Facebook’s leading rival, whose traffic grew just 5 per cent during the same period.

Facebook sues ‘knock-off’ German site

Facebook on Friday filed an intellectual property lawsuit against a German company that it has accused of running a “knock-off” of the social networking website. In a complaint filed in a California court, Facebook accused StudiVZ - a German company that claims 10m users and calls itself “the most successful social network in Germany, Austria and Switzerland” - of “copying the look, feel, features and services” of the Facebook site. Facebook, which was founded in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, recently settled its own intellectual property dispute. It resolved a legal battle with ConnectU, a rival website launched at Harvard around the same time, whose owners claimed Mr Zuckerberg stole its idea for a site that allowed Harvard students to connect to each other online.