Three Minutes with a Chief Yahoo
Cofounder David Filo tells discusses the search portal's evolution, and its challenges as it expands internationally.
Irish passports go RFID, and naked.
Irish passports go RFID, and naked. Mug me, my house is currently worth a fortune Analysis The Irish government has begun issuing RFID passports with biometric data that can be read at a distance to comply with US regulations for its visa waiver programme. [The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs]
Dedicated Server
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Video Resume on YouTube
This is pretty funny. Looks homemade, but there's a lot of work behind it. Click here for a very funny "video resume" and enjoy. I hope the video resumes that are sure to appear on Free IQ will be cool,... (Read on Source)
Watch The Sopranos for FREE on-demand!!
Bored? Want to watch the The Sopranos? TV Links lets you watch the The Sopranos and dozens of other TV shows, cartoons, and anime on-demand whenever and wherever you like. With TVLinks you can stream the The Sopranos on-demand for free.
There's a cool site I found that allows you to watch many of your favorite shows "YouTube style" without the need for BitTorrent or any other file-sharing software.
From "The Simpson" to "The Sopranos" it seemingly has everything in between. TVLinks is a directory that allows visitors to stream the most popular TV shows, cartoon, and anime series s
Toby Bloomberg's Blogger Stories Blog Demonstrates Diversity of Blogosphere
Toby Bloomberg has added my story to her Blogger Stories blog, where it joins the stories of approximately 90 bloggers from all over the world whose lives have been touched by blogs, podcasts, vlogs and other online interactions. I'm honored to be in the company of so many accomplished bloggers. Toby's Blogger Stories project demonstrates once ... (Read on Source)
Quincy Wilson Arrested In Huntington
The Bengals just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. While the 2007 off-season has been much quieter than 2006, the players are still finding ways to live up to ESPN’s recent photo of Bengals Training Camp being held in a penetentiary. The most recent, involves backup running back Quincy Wilson. According to SI.com, Wilson [...] (Read on Source)
T-Mobile USA Launches Home Wi-Fi Calling Service
The service would improve indoor coverage by automatically swapping calls from the cellular network to run over Wi-Fi.
Pets Warehouse Affiliate Program Launches "Everything for Your Pet"
Pets Warehouse's affiliate program is now available on Share-A-Sale. Pets Warehouse has Everything for Your Pet and online marketers are now able to participate by joining Pets Warehouse's affiliate program. (PRWeb Jul 17, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/TWFnbi1JbnNlLUZhbHUtUGlnZy1UaGlyLVplcm8=
Slacker Friday:
"Mary Hill used to love to ride on the merry-go-round/All the guys got eager eyes watching Mary go 'round." WWOZ Pick To Click -- "Fish For Supper" (Hot Lips Page): Once again, I have forgotten to design an eight-mile circular work of topiary that explains how much I love New Orleans. (Read on Source)
PPA Trial Scheduled For July 2008
TAMPA, Fla. - According to a case management order issued June 4, trial in a recently remanded PPA case is scheduled for July 2008 and is expected to last 12 days (Frank Moment, Jr., et al. v. Bayer Corp., No. 8:04-CIV-2659-T-24MSS, M.D. Fla.). Full story on lexis.com
Apparently I Work for Google
Posted by rebecca
...at least, according to my relatives I do. *Disclaimer:* This post isn't really search-related or remotely useful/valuable. Deal with it. I'm bored.I'm in Michigan right now. Hot, humid, flat, skinny tree'd, built Ford (or GM, or Chrysler) tough, crickets chirp at night, everything is a half hour drive away, Michigan. I was born and raised here, but moved to Seattle for college, where I fell in love with the Emerald City and got a pretty sweet internship-turned-job working at the Moz Plex. Still, like a good daughter/sister/niece, I try to visit the Mother Land once or twice a year. And these visits, my lovely readers, have gotten increasingly confusing and complicated after I started working for SEOmoz.
Sure, SEO is a tricky concept to grasp if you're not in our industry, but generally people can get the gist of it (unlike saying "I'm a doctor," or "I'm a teacher"). I, however, have the futile task of trying to explain to my relatives what I do for a living every time I come to visit. These are blue collar folks originally hailing from Tennessee, Kentucky, and other parts of America's Heartland. People who send me emails with ridiculous fonts and giant emoticons. People who forward me the same six damn chain letters I've received since I was thirteen years old. Basically, it's an uphill effort.
The last time I was in town, I had the following exchange with my aunt:
My aunt: "So what do you do now, Rebecca?"
Me: "I work for an Internet marketing company."
My aunt: *blank look*
Me: "Um, so...have you ever searched for something on Google?"
My aunt: *blank look*
Me: *sigh* (thinks to self: damnit, that's usually a good segue...)
And this is usually what my Mom says:
Anyone talking to my mom: "What does Rebecca do?"
My mom: "I don't know. Internet something. (Note to Mom: technically, Internet porn is *something*, so you might want to try and clarify a wee bit.) They must like her, because she travels a lot." (Either that, or I have a debilitating body odor, and the conferences are a good excuse to get me out of the office so they can air out the Korean funk.)
Anyway, imagine my surprise during this trip when the typical "Rebecca does something with computers" mentality changed. A couple days ago I went to a family birthday party. All of my relatives were in attendance, including some I haven't seen since I was a little girl. As soon as I walked in and said hello, one of my uncles said, "Hey, did you hear the news?" I shook my head, and he proceeded to state very facetiously, "Yahoo! bought Google!"
I was confused, not because I believed him (my exact response was, "If anything, it'd be the other way around"), but because I was wondering why he was telling me this. Did my uncle actually understand my line of work, and thus think that I'd be compelled to blog about something that newsworthy? Does he read the blog?! Holy crap, I underestimated my relatives!
That, unfortunately, was not the case. A short while after that exchange, one of my cousins came up to me and said, "Hey, so I hear you're working for Google!" At that point, it clicked. Somehow, in all of my and my brother's attempts to enlighten my relatives about search engine optimization, my family heard "blah blah blah GOOGLE" and interpreted it to mean "Rebecca works for Google!" (I think the "Have you ever searched for something on Google" is what's really hurting me here.) I tried to explain to my cousin that no, I didn't work for Google, but once I started to clarify his face fell and he looked sort of disappointed. I guess SEOmoz isn't shrouded in the same sort of mystique as the almighty, all powerful Google. Sorry, Rand.
By the end of the day, I got tired of seeing faces go from excited to bored, so whenever anyone asked me if I worked for Google, I just mumbled a "mmmyeah, hey, is that fruit salad?" and ambled off. Even my mom and aunt fell victim to the Google ruse:
My aunt: "So what does Rebecca do? She works for Google?"
My mom: "Yep."
I guess what I'm trying to say is: Damn you, Google. You've even monopolized my job title. The least you could do now is get me on your payroll in order to really sell the facade. ;)
SEO Chat Forums - Speaking of Supplemental index...
Date: August 2nd, 2007 01:24 PM - toinkzzz - Untitled Post: can you explain us what query will display when you type * ??...
Come Be The Second Life of the Party!: Que Publishing Holds In-World Party to Launch Second Life:
Whether you're new to Second Life or an experienced virtual world user, join the fun at Que Publishing's launch party for the book, Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World by Brian White (known as Ansel Gasparini in- world). The party will be held in Second Life on Menorca in Slimmie's Cafe on Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 2:00 pm ET and again at 10:00 pm ET. (PRWeb Sep 13, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/SW5zZS1FbXB0LUNvdXAtTWFnbi1UaGlyLVplcm8=
More injury blues for Johnson
Birmingham skipper Damien Johnson has suffered more injury misery and will be out of action for up to a month following another hamstring setback.
Thousands of Themed Web Templates at Great Prices
A new themed web template directory for small businesses struggling at creating a website, has launched. Webmaster Templates contains high quality, easy to edit and customize HTML web templates at bargain basement prices. (PRWeb Oct 22, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/Q291cC1FbXB0LUhhbGYtTG92ZS1UaGlyLVplcm8=
Bad Spelling Makes Money
Remember back in school when you learned how to spell? It almost went hand in hand with the "Don't color outside of the lines!" attitude. It was something you were expected to do - color within the lines and spell correctly.
You lost points for bad grammar, incorrect spelling, and oh yes, coloring outside the line.
If you consider words as a business commodity, correct spelling is usually put up for sale and purchased by those of us who are eager to devour it through magazines, novels, books, newspapers, membership sites, and all kinds of downloadable online content. To name but a few outlets.
So, what happens to all the incorrect spelling? Where does it go?
Feedback From ?Optimizing Your Landing Pages - Part One?
We received a nice note last week from Eric Stevenson, who runs AXcess News. Eric submitted his co-brandnews.com Landing Page for live optimization at our last Webinar on Feb. 6th, and immediately began implementing our suggestions: ?Attached is the screenshot of the new http://co-brandnews.com site ? totally rebuilt to follow the wonderful ... (Read on Source)
A Tale of Two City Wi-Fi's (PC World)
PC World - Different approaches to wireless Internet access in San Francisco and neighboring Silicon Valley are producing very different...
FCC chair's important push for an open Internet
Chris O'Brien in the San Jose Mercury News: FCC chair strikes chord with push for open Internet. Glad someone in the press is playing attention. Excerpt: (Read on Source)
Clarity Undelivered
In my ‘Three Challenges’ Post I wrote the following to describe one of the fundamental reasons why I think the process of managing paid search needs to be improved: (Read on Source)
Who Writes Linux? (And How You Can Too!)
The Linux Distillery: "The very heart of the Linux operating system is the kernel, the piece of software which makes programs run and work with hardware. It's possibly the largest and most geographical spread open source project in the world. With software projects failing daily how can such a task actually work?"
Virology: How Does Herpes Simplex Virus Cause Inflammation Of The Brain?
Worldwide, about 80% of young adults are infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). The most common symptom of infection is a cold sore, but in some individuals the virus can also cause life-threatening inflammation of the brain (encephalitis); 70% of individuals who do not get treatment for this condition die.
Oxfam: Urgent U.N. action in Chad needed
Banditry and increased insecurity are threatening U.N. and EU peacekeeping efforts in eastern Chad, an aid group said in a report ...
Consumer Confidence Rebounds
Sept. 12 Bloomberg Confidence among U.S. consumers rose the most in more than...
Can Google Be Trusted?
They are a world-leading enterprise, employing over 22,000 people. Fortune named them "America's Most Innovative Company". They also run various online marketplace services, through which a vast amount of money flows. They are a trusted name in households across the country. It is the year 2000, and that company is Enron.
Less than a year later, Enron would collapse under the weight of institutionalized fraud. And hubris.
The lessons learned from the Enron collapse were the dangers of monopolistic power and lack of transparency.
Google In 2008
Google is the darling of the tech world. In fact, they're pretty much the darling of every world, given their massive market reach and the usefulness of their services. Google occupy a position of enormous power. It is fair to say Google has nothing in common with Enron, other than the fact they are a big company, and for the most part, Google has done a good job in terms of gaining and maintaining trust with a wide range of stakeholders.
But for any company the size of Google, especially one that has grown in such a short period of time, questions of trust - and anti-trust - will eventually surface.
Should We Trust The Machine?
Take for example the recent case of United Airlines stock. An old story about the airline's bankruptcy was published online, resulting in $1B being wiped off the value off the value of the stocks within minutes. The finger pointing started soon after, with Google blaming the originator of the piece, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whilst the Tribune Company, who publishes The Sun-Sentinel, pointed the finger right back.
To be fair, the mistake was largely due to a chain of human errors, and most of the mistakes made were outside of the control of Google. Questions of blame aside, this issue comes down to a matter of trust. Clearly, people trusted the information they saw on an automated news service, and acted accordingly. The lesson learned is that we should not be so quick to place trust in the machine.
From Trust To Anti-Trust
There is another trust - actually, anti-trust - issue of late, and this issue goes to the heart of Google's business model - online advertising.
Google's proposed Yahoo partnership is raising fresh antitrust woes. Regulators are starting to look more closely at Google's role in the world of online advertising. Will this deal give Google too much control of the online advertising space? Yahoo claims this partnership will create more market access, and provide better ROI, to advertisers. Advertisers fear that Google could use market dominance to set higher prices for search ads.
Forward-thinking SEOs may be licking their lips at that prospect, but I doubt many small website owners who rely on PPC will be too happy.
Smoke & Mirrors
In a related example, Aaron reported on a feature in The New York Times about how Google refused to tell the owner of a directory why his bid prices had skyrocketed.
"When I pressed Mr. Fox about Sourcetool, he refused to tell me why the algorithm had problems with the site. When I asked him why the business.com site was in the algorithm?s good graces but Sourcetool?s wasn?t, he wouldn?t tell me that, either. All I got were platitudes about the user experience. It wasn?t long before I was almost as exasperated as Mr. Savage. How can you adapt your business model to Google?s specs if Google won?t tell you what the specs are?"
A similar dual-tier system appears in to be in operation in the organic search results. Greg Boser has a great post about this entitled "Why Big Brands Should Spam Search Engines".
"I wouldn?t hesitate because I understand that if a search engine happens to stumble upon what it considers improper SEO techniques all on their own, they will more than likely contact us directly to discuss the matter. Getting kicked out of the database won?t even be a consideration. If our improper SEO tactics happens to get outed publicly by some gung-ho blogger, or one of the many competitors competing for our terms, I know that all we?ll get is a tiny slap on the wrist to show the world that the particular search engine is serious about web spam. And once our public scolding is completed, we will instantly be allowed to cut to the front of the confessional line".
We all remember the BMW incident.
Google may well enjoy a significant trust level, but they couldn't exactly be described as transparent, or consistent. The Adwords and Adsense systems have become a hall of smoke and mirrors, where some players get a free ride, whilst others get hammered. There is often little or no explanation given as to why. With transparency comes trust, and the often secretive Google could do a lot more to provide clarity.
Cases of this nature are always complicated and it is unlikely much will change in the short term. Many of us simply wish that Google would be a lot more transparent about how webmasters can use, and build upon, their platform.
I suspect that, going forward, saying "Trust Us!" won't be good enough.
Oct 9 Deadline: Up To Abdullah To Decide, Says Muhyiddin
... any form except with the prior written permission of BERNAMA. . Best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0 & above with 800 x 600 pixels ...
Bilski: What It Means, Part 1 -- Red Hat on What It Means for FOSS
Groklaw: "First, in a simplified nutshell, here is what Bilski means to everyone: You can't get patents any more on a pure mental process. You can no longer patent a process that you can think through all in your mind. In other words, abstract ideas are not patentable."
The 3 Must-Do Things to Identify Quality Web Hosting
In fact there are too many web hosting providers in the market nowadays causing too many hosting offer floating around. When there are too many choices, dilemma happens where potential subscribers do ...
Now That's Vanquishing a Hated Foe
A season-altering triumph? It sure had that feeling in the immediate aftermath of a cardiac comeback against the 'Canes. The Caps were three minutes shy of starting off an important homestand with a frustrating loss to their fiercest and most hated Southeast foe. Then, in keeping with his storybook season, Alexander Semin took a struggling team ... (Read on Source)
SCO Vows to Appeal Judge's Patent Ruling
The Utah-based SCO Group has been cleared to appeal a court ruling that might lead to a revival of its dispute with IBM over copyright claims to the freely distributed Linux operating system. Utah Federal Judge Dale A. Kimball has signed a final judgment in a case involving Novell, in which he had awarded Novell $2.5 million for some of the revenues SCO obtained in licensing the Unix computer operating system.
name: MAGPIE