Tag: Internet

If Google is to believed the error was a human error in their bad site list, when someone wrote “\” as a bad file. This led to all sites being flagged as malware.

When that happened, customers for a time sample of 40 minutes , did the following

1) Went ahead and clicked on site they knew was okay

2) Wrote to Google on the error

3) Clicked on some sites but didn’t click on less trustable sites

The data collected from that sample is now being studied by Google. Why are they studying it ? Because in some way that clicking data, including time of search, time of clicks, frequency of repeated searches can lead to a ranking system for flagging malware sites which use popular keywords using the Adwords system ,and serving the newly discovered viruses in recent history ( including the ones which create dummy bots ) of computers.

Has Adwords been corrupted? Can Adwords be infiltrated ? Would Google tell us or try and fix the problem and then tell us?

As Andy Grove said ‘ Where the Paranoid survive”. Store all information of your Google searches, your Google Analytics data,your Orkut ,your emails and your YouTube for last nine months and anyone can have a pretty fair idea of what work,play ,hobbies you are up to. Remember Click fraud makes money for Google too- and even a 1 % increase in Click fraud rates increases Google’s quarterly earnings.

I trust Google and the “ Don’t be evil “ philosophy. But the philosophy and an apology cannot be the only safeguards for the privacy for billions of humans.

 

We Trust God. Everyone else has to bring data. Even Google. But guess what – Google wont share the data even for how they build the Chinese walls between commercial ads and search results.That’s more like a closed –source route,isn’t it.

Don’t worry. Just trust Google.

A relatively late entrant to the www.twitter.com phenomenon, I started uploading my blog posts on my  twitter account.Here are some insights which I saw in action and maybe they are common knowledge but here goes-

1) Twitter automatically converts links into www.tinyurl.com links so it shortens even the longest link that you have

2) Uploading address book, including anyone who ever wrote an email to you as part of a discussion or reading group, takes a tiny amount of time. Then click follow all ( or at least those for a particular profile –here analytics and data) and you are off.

3) Twitter manners seem to consider it customary to follow people who are following you.Thus an audience or initial leads are assured. Rest content is king.

4) Reading tweets ( or twitter messages) is a great break as it gives you a real time insight on what is happening within the world of your domain or people who belong to same profession or same personal profile as to you. However writing personal tweets takes time,and a healthy dose of self love.

5) Twitter is free. And there are enough twitter tools to ensure it gets updated from your RSS feed automatically so it is one more tool to ensure publicity for your self or your organization.

6) Search for people giving or receiving same services as you provide to get maximized target response.

7) Link up your Face book, and your Yahoo instant messenger with Twitter using applications built exactly for this.

No ,LinkedIn does not have a Twitter app but that should change soon.

 

8) Watch out for useless spam stuff from people whom you don’t know well.Spamming or just being reported leads to suspended accounts and much useless grief.

Happy twittering with tweets on www.twitter.com ( ..what a tongue twister !!)

 

And an update from my favorite tech blog http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/–

Starbucks dishes out updates on special offers and nutritional and store information using Twitter. The online retailer Zappos, Comcast and Southwest Airlines have also created official accounts on Twitter to interact with consumers and respond directly to complaints.

Bank of America’s Twitter stream is maintained by David Knapp, a representative in Phoenix.

And why is http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/ my favorite-

It shows blogs with better command of English than of technology are better reading than blogs with superb grasp of technology but not of English.

 

In case you want to say hi/ tweet/shout ……..this is where, my twitter sit ’er

http://twitter.com/decisionstats

I can still remember two years ago when a friend and erstwhile client from the United States sent me a link to www.LinkedIn.com. While today social media is a rage, back in early 2006 ,LinkedIn re-defined social networking from chatting with teenagers to actual value delivered to customers. Over a period of time both my network and LinkedIn grew- my network is now 6200 members , Decision Stats on LinkedIn has 570 + members and LinkedIn has 30 million people and a reported 1 billion dollar valuation.

 

Yet Life on LinkedIn has been slowly losing interest to the point where it is now just a directory service of contacts.

 

Some reasons for the declining relevance of LinkedIn are –

1) Average User Interface Updating- While www.Facebook.com successfully transformed itself into a new look for 70 million users, the UI at LI does leave some things to be desired. Some glitches include a slower than promised rollout of third party applications, and bugs aplenty in the way you update your status, how to remove connections  and the new cluttered home page.

2) Thrust on Groups rather than content (Questions and Answers)– Q and A at LI were a great interactive feature as people answered and posted interesting questions. This has been reduced in focus, by the group discussion features which are a half way effort from the discussions free for all and making a newsletter happen for the group. Many successful LI groups made the transition to being full communities in their own right, mostly using www.ning.com .LI was also unable to capture the whole value chain of engaged communities by not having a newsletter function in the groups, and by group owners not being able to customize stuff.

3) Top Down User Limits– Limits on groups being at most 50, invites being at most 3000, meant that slowly LI was punishing active users more than controlling spam. The Open Networkers movement (people who network openly with everyone) was neither predicted nor monetized well by LI.

4) Inability to monetize recruiters fully (they exist and flourish thanks to LI’s inability to fully channelize them into a paying media), not able to cut down on spam (which exists in much bigger volumes now  due to bigger user base now), and refusal to create connection specific privacy (as in Face book which allows you to keep levels of privacy display for your connections) are other reasons for the decline.

LI has been a pioneer not only in professional networking but also in using non ad pricing strategies in keeping a steady cash flow. Some new features like LinkedIn Polls are promising , and hopefully the next generation of Third Party applications would make the site interesting again.

So there is hope it will get its act together again. However in a very competitive online ad market, time and speed of reaction are critical. LI does have the first mover advantage, but it can lose relevance just like the Lycos and the Yahoo did if it changes slower than users want it. With the current recession, it is an opportunity for communities like LI to tap into the recruiting market and also focus on owning, creating , if not enabling ,relevant content for reading and sharing by users.

Dear List – I just became blogger on the week on http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/

That’s because of the R article, the interview with Dr Graham and other India specific things that I write about.Even though I did lose the alumni President elections by some miles at www.iiml.org.

You can read the complete article at Social Media here at-

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/67268

How do I feel ? Well like my creation , Blog Boy below says it best………