Jan 27
[eff.org...] 004345
I’ve said for years that in any court case, “the one with the most money will 99% of the time win. Yesterdays ruling that Googles republished copy of pages (they call it a “cache”) proves that point.
What Does It Mean:
It means we can now all start “caching” search engines and republishing works. Simply download and install a search engine just as ASPSeek and fed it some URLs. And as added bonus points The search engines will glady cache your cached pages.
- bt
Jan 26
The third attempt at a search marketing magazine:
[searchmarketingstandard.com...]
Many will probably remember the first big magazine BallyHoo by Troy Perkins.
-bt
Jan 25
Yahoo CFO Susan Dreker said earlier this week:
We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. “It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.
So when my email and stickymail started going off that Yahoo had responded, I was excited. At least until I found out they had responded on their blog.
They have the phone number of every major tech reporter in the country in their Rolodex. So why not call up Bloomberg for a second interview and respond – or how about the AP – or the New York Times, – one of a dozen other top news outlets in the country? To publish a “nondenial denial” on the corporate blog is to be dismissed from top to bottom. It pollutes everything they have to say via that avenue from now until eternity.
This is a perfect example of why the corporate search blogs should be ignored. It is why companies should not act this way. It is also why we do not link to corporate search blogs.
If they have something to say – then issue a press release, or grab the nearest real reporter on any street corner and talk.
- bt
Jan 25
The Google toolbar tracks everything a person does with his/her browser.
Google knows the following about toolbar users:
A massive set of derived data:
This is what the web referrs to as spyware. If a user enables the tracking mode advanced features of the toolbar (every toolbar I have seen has it on), the above info is tracked forever by Google.
That by itself is benign. It is when you put it in the context of the US governments request for information from Google that things get very suspect.
More than three quarters of web surfers don’t realize Google records and stores information that may identify them, results of a new opinion poll show.
So from out of no where comes word that Google will cofund a group that is AntiSpyware.
Sources say the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School will run the operations of the coalition with help from Consumer Reports WebWatch, a consumer advocacy group.
Ya buddy – Harvard involved in it! Lets to those college boys on the case. After all – they have a ton of leisure time and think they have the world by the tail. Now maybe we can get some decent legal action on Malware!
However, from there – we go down hill pretty fast:
Vint Cerf, the renowned technologist who was recently hired as chief Internet evangelist at Google, is on board as an adviser to the coalition.
Can you say “conflict of interest”? This is an attempt at co-opting an issue that is right in their front yard.
And from there – it flat out gets shady:
The groups domain? Umm, dude – it is owned by Google…
————————————————————————-
Domain ID:D109507546-LROR
Domain Name:STOPBADWARE.ORG
Created On:14-Dec-2005 01:04:00 UTC
Last Updated On:19-Jan-2006 21:11:56 UTC
Expiration Date:14-Dec-2006 01:04:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Network Solutions LLC (R63-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:40225598-NSIV
Registrant Name:Google
Registrant Organization:Google
————————————————————————-
And just when I was feeling all Googly about Google again…
-bt
Jan 25
Revolutions do not happen when things get worse, or human rights are walked on. People have better times fresh in their memory. They are willing to endure some hard times because they feel blessed about the average or good times they just had.
Historically, revolutions happen when things start to get “a little bit better”. People start to want, hope, and dream of a better future. That desire – often along with an empty stomach – moves them to action.
Not the US Government – nor US companies – are going to single handedly start a revolution in China. Only the Chinese can do that if they desire. Hopefully, the taste of a little Google brand of information freedom can help things get a “little bit better” in China.
From blood stained concret of Tiananmen Square, to the factories of Shanghi, there is a fire in the belly of China. Google in China is not a seed of freedom. Google is potent fuel to the fire.
As distasteful as many of us find government imposed censorship, Google did the right thing. It is better to be part of an imperfect solution, than to be part of the problem. Lets us hope, the quest for freedom continues to grow.
What exactly will be censored? www.google.cn
-bt
Jan 24
The Sacrificial Machine:
We had a machine at work for awhile that we would install suspect software on it and let it have its way with the machine. We used to run an mp3 site for mp3 software and that stuff would often come with AdWare and spyware as tag alone installs. It was always scary to fire up the sacrificial machine and look at WebmasterWorld. Via popware and AdWare, we watched benign text get churned into some ones (often a competitors) advertisement. It was unnerving and infuriating. It is an over used word, but I did feel “violated” for my site and my community. It was as if someone was stealing from us in broad daylight and the cops wouldn’t do anything to protect our property.
Internet Explorer – And Microsoft ActiveX:
On the way to “web is platform” nerdvana, Microsoft ran into a few problems. The first of those problems was Active X. Aside from making for some great viruses, ActiveX has done little to live up to the hype. It is so overly complex, that only major corporations with deep programming departments and hackers can write programs to take advantage of it. As far as I can determine, the only real purpose ActiveX has thus far live out, has been to leave systems vulnerable to easy attack. Although the Microsoft security patches have fallen from a weekly occurrence to a monthly one (thank God!), there are still many holes being found in Windows. Any operating system that could allow a Gator to be installed and not easily uninstalled without heroic measures is fundamentally flawed.
It was via many of the ActiveX access points, that AdWare programs have found a living. It was through those points, that they were able to quietly be installed. I am sure we have all seen the reports that some of the AdWare programs used questionable install methods and ethics. Whether that includes Gator (now known as Claria), I do not know.
“Our idea was a program that would store your passwords and automatically log you into password-protected sites,” says Wally Buch. …They called it eWallet.
Respecting Innovation:
I love software innovation in any sector. Take Claria/Gator for example. It started out as a simple little program that would act as a “wallet” for people to securely and easily spend money online. It was morphed into an amazing (but annoying) Ad program. I say amazing, because some of the things going on at the code level in Claria are break through tactics. Some of which, you can clearly see showing up in other major ad programs. Gator was the original contextual ad program that silently fed ads that worked along side webpages.
The Scumware Nonsense:
I was fundamentally against the webmaster stance that there was something inherently wrong with Gator. I believe strongly that Claria/Gator is one of the most innovative products of the last five years. AdSense and its clones would not exist if not for Gator. More than anything else, Gator points out the gapping holes in Microsoft Windows. It also pointed out the holes in our installation routines. Will we ever again blindly click on that agree button to install software? For that wakeup call, we owe them a debt of gratitude for teaching us all to question that program we are about to install.
Google – with its interconnected search, email, chat, blogs, and social networks – is also in the business of targeting ads based on user behavior. So are MSN and Yahoo! All three maintain profiles of everyone who signs up for their services. They use cookies to track what visitors do on their sites while they’re logged in; the downloadable Google and MSN toolbars track which sites users visit when they’re logged out. Like Claria, Google has amassed a vast database of user profiles that it plans to use for even better targeting in the future.
On side note, I also respect Claria for it’s tough stance and business tenacity. They have taken a tired, beaten, and bruised company and turned it into a company that works with some of the largest companies on the web today. I think they will be used in public relations courses as text book examples of proactive damage control and campaign management.
It is doubtful I will ever learn to “love” Claria. However, the one public service it has done is to show us where to truly point a finger of blame – straight at Redmond for giving us an OS that would allow AdWare to make a living in the first place.
- bt
Jan 23
On the day last November that we booked Gladwell to speak at this springs PubCon Boston, he sold the movie rights to Blink.
Leonardo DiCaprio is to play a man with a particular gift for reading body language in the forthcoming adaptation of Blink, Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller about how people make snap decisions.
The writer-director will be Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of 2000′s drug trade film Traffic. “[Gaghan] came to me out of the blue,” Gladwell told trade magazine Variety. ‘He thought there was something in the book that was a movie. We took one chapter from the book and fashioned a story out of it. But most of it is something we dreamt up together.”
bt
Jan 22
We all quietly missed a major story last week: Berkshire Hathaway to Buy Business Wire
That is Warrens first buy in internet space.
-bt
Jan 20
The Beast:
And so it begins; the politics of personal destruction turns its’ malcontented eyes upon warm and fuzzy Google. “The Beast” always needs to be fed.
Bush and the right wing have all by dominated the DC news cycle for the last 6 years. Wrong doing at the highest levels of govt – from suspect actions of the vice president, to questionable activities of the NSA, The Beast has not has a satisfying orgy since Lewinsky and Clinton left town. Even Jacko couldn’t keep The Beast contented for long.
Google The Blue State:
CNN reported last year on a USA Today campaign finance analysis of the 2004 election. The story at the time was a page three nerf story that didn’t cause any concern or discussion at the time. The story maintained that 98% of all Google employee contributions went to Democrats in 2004.
A USA Today campaign finance analysis found that, of the company’s overall political contributions, 98 percent went to Democrats, the biggest share among top tech donors.
That story is about the 2004 election. Since that time, Google has went public and grown significantly. Google employee net worth has grown by several BILLION dollars.
So, lets cut to the chase : if Google employees are very generous with their campaign contributions, they could almost fund the entire democratic presidential campaign alone. At a minimum, they could be the difference in a close election.
Think that is a stretch? Imagine what a 1-2 million dollars worth of public service announcements educating people about “chads” could have done in Florida in 2000. What about a 5-10 million dollar ad buy in Cleveland or Pittsburgh in Oct of 2004? Google contributions could have easily swayed the last two presidential elections the other way!
Top Google givers last year included CEO Eric Schmidt, whose company stock is worth about $2.8 billion. His biggest donation: $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. His was among several big employee contributions made shortly after Google’s IPO.
Pre-emptive Pacification Program:
When Bill Gates had a similar political problem in 1999, he went on a right wing pacification program. It included lobbyists, massive political contributions, and speeches aimed at propping up the right wing platform. In return, the Bush administration took the harsh sentence imposed by Clinton dominated courts and morphed it into a hand slap.
Our mission in Washington boils down to this: Defend the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation, writes Google attorney Andrew McLaughlin.
At a minimum, I think we will see Republicans marching to Mountain View with their hands out repeatedly. Will Larry and Sergey “share the love”?
The only question is if Google will be able to survive their ride on The Beast? Yesterday, Google lost $50 off it’s stock value. The biggest one day decline for Google ever – and that was but a simple subpoena issue. Imagine what a real “issue day” for the beast will be.
What happened this week was not a country seeking data from Google – it was the first salvo of the 2008 presidential election. This was target practice from The Beast.
This week was your only wake up call Google. The politics of personal destruction are knocking at the door. Heads up Larry and Sergey, The Beast is coming.
-bt
Jan 19
Thanks to everyone who made it to the open house at our new offices yesterday.
We had a great time. Thanks to RogerD and LifeTips for the flowers.
-bt
Jan 13
Happy Friday the 13th.
Lets boil the entire Web 2.0 noise down into a simple sentence:
The total spamification of Usenet, meant people had to go somewhere else to communicate.
That is all that is at work in all the 2.0 talks, papers, research, and general huff-n-puff that is going on. People love to talk. Mankind has taken every opportunity in history to communicate:
Any time something has interfered with any of those lines of communication, there was a break through, or a movement to a new type of communication. In the case of the internet, that is people moving from the public spam fest known as Usenet, to privately controlled entities such as bbs’s and social networking sites. Spam is at the root of the Usenet decline. From body part enlargement ads, to carefully constructed whisper campaigns, people got tired of fighting it the same way we got tired of fighting it in our inboxes.
From there, came this onslaught of irrelevant stuff from web-is-platform to, “a new way to communicate” piled on. None of which had anything whatsoever to do with “Web 2.0″ as was originally envisioned.
So lets stop pontificating about Web 2.0 and tell the truth – Usenet is dying, and Tim Oreilly needs to make a buck!
Everything else you have heard about Web 2.0 is just bs to fill dead air time.
-bt
… The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Jan 12
This one should be filed under that old “hate it as a user – love it as a webmaster” file folder.
As webmasters, most of our sites life blood is advertising. As webmasters we enjoy getting those checks every month, but as users, we all kinda wince at some of the over kill out there on the web today.
From about 1998 until 2003, there was a pretty strong anti advertising component on the web. A flashing banner ad would send alot of users into a web rage. That trend was watered down as banner advertising went bust. I also think it went bust because some search engines started to devalue pages with banner ads on them. Whether that was done because it was competition, or because users clearly didn’t want those types of pages is an argument for another day.
Since the rebirth of advertising lead by Googles AdSense program, the trend has been back towards advertising and webmasters. The non offensive benign text based ads are rather harmless. However, with the rise of AdSense, there has been the slow rebirth of graphical based ads and buttons. What webmaster hasn’t wanted to maximize his or her revenue and ad inventory?
Based on the continuing rise in the number of threads dealing with web spam, it is clear users are once again getting annoyed by the growing onslaught of visual noise. The blog entry we did here a few weeks ago about web spam generated a large vocal response from members. It was equally split between “love” and “hate”. By far, the largest set of feedback was about ad blockers and how easy it is for people to cut 75% of the web junk off their machine. Having not looked at Ad blockers for a few years, I was amazed at the depth and quality of software available for this specific task.
From simple ad blockers to users self editing their hosts file, Ad blocking is back – as big as ever. The raw category niches that the Ad Blockers have addressed is comprehensive:
It is scary to think of as a webmaster, that those kinds of utils are available to the public to stop our income. We used to only have to look at a couple of issues, but now – it seems this stuff is growing like wildfire and the anti advertising voices are rising again.
I don’t know if there is an action item here, other than to be aware there is a limit to advertising on ones pages. We can’t let another antiadvertising trend get started.
-bt
… For my birthday I got a humidifier and a dehumidifier. I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. – Steven Wright
Jan 12
There is something going on here:
So, How Does One Retire From This Business:
What Did You Learn This Year?
What Would Your Family Do If You Were Hit By A Bus?
Goals For 2006? A Look Ahead:
Inspiration To Get Involved In Web Development:
Building A “simple” Hobby Website, 25 Things To Figure Out:
The Question Every Webmaster Dreads: “What do you do for a living?
It is time to tune into it. We’ll use this esoteric entry as a bookmark and come back to this in about six months.
I think this is our year.
Mom and Pop – We’re BACK!?
-bt
Jan 12
The WebmasterWorld community and the public are invited to a reception to celebrate the opening of the new WebmasterWorld Corporate Offices.
In attendance will be Brett Tabke (CEO), Neil Marshall (Director of Forum operations), Monica Rowley (VP Biz Operations), Matthew Olguin (Director of PubCon Conferences), Adam Young (Lead Systems Developer), and Joe Morin (Director of Strategic Marketing).
The reception will take place next Wednesday January 18th from 3pm to 7pm at our Austin Texas location.
RSVP for directions to btabke at webmasterworld.com.
More on new offices:
- brett
Jan 11
Another fresh (Tuesday 11, 2006) patch for windows:
Update that windows please…again.
bt