Category: internet

how long before Microsoft ruins Yahoo?

On By Rick McIn Google, internetLeave a comment

I’m not hearing much blog consensus on the possible acquisition by Microsoft of Yahoo!

yahoo-microsoft.jpg
original – flickr

Google is troubled by the Microsoft move.

Me too. But for completely different reasons. I like Yahoo! and use some of their online products. It will take some years, but I expect any kind of merger will be messy and ultimately damaging to leading Yahoo products like flickr.

On the other hand, this would spur Google to even greater innovation in the short term. Might be good for the consumer.

From Microsoft’s point of view, it’s probably a good move. They need to do something to get relevant online.

By the way, at Stanford University in California, Google and Facebook are battling to hire computer science undergrads before graduation. Starting salary $92-95K.

(via Google Operating System)

More: Is Microsoft a doomed dinosaur?

ripped off on high-speed internet?

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaints, TVLeave a comment

CBC TV Marketplace did a brilliant investigation into how little of the promised “unlimited way fast” internet speed you actually get.

They compared the 4 major providers in Toronto. Certainly, I thought, hated TELUS would be worst. …

Actually, Bell was by far worst.

Are you getting the high-speed internet you’re paying for?

When the telephone and cable companies are trying to sell you internet access, speed is everything. Some promise speeds of “up to 8Mbps.” Some go as high as “up to 25Mbps.” But how well do they explain what those numbers mean?

Pay attention to two small but important words: “up to.” Sometimes they can be a shorthand way of saying “up to a theoretical maximum speed you may not actually experience, because your wires are old, or you have a lot of neighbours sharing the connection, or because we’re still upgrading our equipment in your area.”

You can see the TV show on-line: CBC.ca – Marketplace

Facebook – mostly drunken young women

On By Rick McIn internet, photosLeave a comment

From the beginning, I’ve noted Facebook photos are mostly young females, well-dressed, usually with alcohol.

You KNOW this is going to cause grief long-term.

There’s very little anonymity on Facebook. Once something is posted, you cannot DELETE easily. It’s been backed-up somewhere.

Why do young women participate when it’s clear photos like this — and worse — will eventual published. (By their “friends”.)

fbookbottles0411_468×358.jpg

I’m relieved we didn’t have Facebook when I was her age.

One opinion:

“People are perfectly happy to post these sorts of pictures because they recognise that alcohol-related embarrassment will actually improve their social standing.”

The ladettes who glorify their shameful drunken antics on Facebook | the Daily Mail

Obviously social networking is a winner. But I hope Google steps back to see how to do it with privacy and security in place by default.

heard of Windows Live Spaces?

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

One of the Microsoft Team in charge called it .. the World’s Most Popular Social Networking Site.

Funny, I did not know Windows Live Spaces existed.

Here’s the post:

… You might quibble with the title of this blog post but it is hard to argue that Blogger is a social networking site by any definition of the term. When it comes to reach, no social networking site impacts as many users as Windows Live Spaces.

Of course, unique users aren’t the only metric Web sites are judged against and I’m sure there are many out there who will be quick to point out other charts that show our user engagement is lower than average which is a fair point. …

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life – Windows Live Spaces: World’s Most Popular Social Networking Site

It got me to go check out Windows Live Spaces (another terrible name, by the way, Microsoft). Turned out I have an account. Here’s my WLS page:

windows-live.jpg

I even have 24 “friend invites”, all SPAM.

So, because I have a Microsoft Hotmail account, I have a WLS page. And this guy — Dare Obasanjo (hmm, He is the son of the former President of Nigeria) — counts me a member though I’ve never used it.

You can call me “low engagement member”, alright.

Windows Live Spaces looks terrible, by the way, compared with Facebook.

Akismet stops SPAM

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

92% of all comments on blogs are spam. Yet you’ve never seen a spam comment on this blog.

I use a free for personal use spam blocker called Akismet:

… Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again.

akismet.jpg
screenshot

Stop Comment Spam and Trackback Spam « Akismet

Who doesn’t my email spam blocker work properly?

bloggers as celebrities in Virgin Airlines ad

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaints, travelLeave a comment

Finally.

A corporate behemoth smart enough to hook into the blogosphere.

… actual bloggers appearing in the ad are Xeni Jardin, Cory Doctorow, David Pescovitz, and Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing and Pete Rojas of Engadget. I hope they’re getting a bunch of money for it. Or at least free tickets.

bloggers.gif

Emerging From The Hall Of Justice? – Leo Laporte

You’d think I’d be excited about Virgin Airlines expanding in America.

But I was quite disappointed with Virgin, Australia when I took 8 flights with them earlier this year. I will stay away from that airline if I can.

I joined Orkut – Google’s Facebook

On By Rick McIn Google, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

With Google’s stock price at a record high, it’s hard to claim they’ve bungled anything.

But if GOOG is vulnerable anywhere, it’s lack of social networking.

They realize this. And likely will social network EVERYTHING in the Googleverse.

In the meantime, their version of Facebook is only big in Asia and Latin America.

Actually, it’s pretty good. it’s got too much SPAM. Very Despite looking similar to Facebook, which has very little SPAM.

The big question … DO YOU TRUST GOOGLE with your information?

Orkut’s terms of service state:

… By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials.

Orkut – Wikipedia

I joined mainly to check the hiking and gymnastics groups.

orkut.jpg

Since I have no friends on Orkut, I will look at it rarely.

read more … Google’s Orkut: A World of Ambition – Business Week

UPDATE – Orkut is pretty crappy from what I can see after 20min. Lots of SPAM (example below). I went to report this “violation”. Let’s see how long it takes Google to remove this post and fake user.

spam.jpg
SPAM post

websites you use – subscription or advertising?

On By Rick McIn internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

The NY Times stopped charging for access to select sections of the website a couple of weeks ago.

… The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

…

The Times’s site has about 13 million unique visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, far more than any other newspaper site. Ms. Schiller would not say how much increased Web traffic the paper expects by eliminating the charges, or how much additional ad revenue the move was expected to generate.

read the entire article: Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site – New York Times

Many took this to signal the end of “paid walled gardens” on the internet.

The advertising supported model has won out. For now.

In the end, I think consumers will want the option to have free content, advertising supported, as well as the option to get the same content at cost, without advertising.

The next big step is to improve advertising on-line. It’s pretty annoying right now.

The NY Times, by the way, has the most attractive format of any paper I can recall.

Not the cluttered home page, but internal pages like this:

nyt.jpg

Still, I’d much rather go to Google News or Digg than the NY Times. (Google has no conspicuous advertising, Digg has one.)

domain registry of Canada – CROOKS

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

WARNING

Though I complained to the Competition Bureau of Canada in April, a company called “Domain Registry of Canada” with a mailing address in Markham, Ontario continues what I consider to be a mail SCAM.

They send people who own domain names (RickMcCharles.com, for example) a “Domain Name Expiration Notice” that looks like a renewal invoice.

droc.jpg

DROC.ca

I have a copy of their letter scam if you want to see it.