Aircell, the company that offers Gogo Inflight Internet service to airline passengers, announced on Thursday that based on internal research, Gogo customer visits to NCAA-focused sites increased 953 percent during the first and second rounds of NCAA Tournament play.
Visits to sports-focused sites in general were up 123 percent from February. The most visited NCAA site on Gogo was CBSSports.com (Disclosure: CBSSports.com is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News.)
Real-estate search site Trulia announced Thursday that it set new records for site traffic in the first quarter of 2009. According to the company, visits were up 40 percent year over year, and property views increased by 50 percent over 2008. The site's overall page views increased 63 percent in 2009. Is Trulia's success an indication that the real-estate market is coming around?
Glu Mobile, a provider of mobile games, has debuted 30 titles on the newly launched BlackBerry App World. The 30 titles, which focus mainly on games, include Brain Genius 2, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and others. The titles are available now in the BlackBerry App World. The same apps are already available in the Apple App Store.
Online research company LexisNexis announced on Thursday that it has signed a deal with the Internal Revenue Service that will make it the exclusive provider of a "comprehensive set of online tax research solutions."
Under terms of the deal, LexisNexis will provide the organization with its Tax Center and Tax Advisor services, giving the IRS better information on finding tax errors. IRS customer service agents, revenue officers, attorneys, and auditors will have access to the services.
Although taxes aren't due until April, many people like to get an early start in step with the new year. Services from the two most popular digital tax-prep brands are available to try or buy, although state forms won't trickle in until mid-January.
As e-filing and online tax preparation become more popular, boxed applications and their Web-based counterparts offer most of the same tools and interface elements. As a rule of thumb, online products are ideal for one filer, while installed software can handle a bigger household. Although there are no revolutionary changes to TurboTax and TaxCut from what we could tell, here's a quick list of what to expect.
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TurboTax:
- A new embedded peer support system, Live Community, resembles Q&A services such as Yahoo Answers.
- The new Audit Risk Meter flags potentially problematic claims. For instance, divorced parents may not know that a child can only be claimed for a credit by one of the parents. A new audit support center steps through managing one of the four types of IRS audits.
- Its Deductible, formerly a separate install, is now integrated within the software. It displays eBay market values for donated items, and it offers cost basis analyses.
- Prices haven't risen, from the free edition to the $75 Home & Business for the desktop, e-filing included in all.
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TaxCut:
- H&R Block adds help for people in the military who may need to wrangle with foreign income, combat pay, and moving expenses.
- Search capabilities are improved.
- Prices range from $15 for online Basic to $90 Home & Business for the desktop.
- Includes tech support with H&R Block tax advisers. TaxCut continues to offer free telephone help with a tax adviser for those who are later audited by the IRS.
These services are sometimes so similar that last year our Editors' Choice award went to TaxCut for best tax application, but to TurboTax for best online tax service.
It would be wise to be online when you open one of the apps from a hard drive, because Intuit and H&R Block will continue to add downloadable updates in the coming months. Anyone worried about the Alternative Minimum Tax can expect any upcoming changes to the tax code to be reflected in the updates. We'll publish full reviews early next year.
I'm at the Conversational Marketing Summit, listening to a chat between organizer John Battelle and Intuit founder Scott Cook. Batelle is asking about Intuit's online presence. Cook says he'd move all his business online in a heartbeat if he could, but that many QuickBooks business customers don't want to run their accounts online. And not for reliability or accessibility reasons.
Rather, Cook says, his customers want to know where their data is at all times, since in many cases, they're keeping somewhat fictional accounts for their tax reports. Should the IRS come knocking, Cook says, "Format C:..."
You can't do that on a Web drive. Something to keep in mind if you're building a Web service for business.
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