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April 30, 2004
Google Files For IPO
You probably have already heard about it by now: Google has filed for the long awaited IPO expecting to get $2.7bn. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston were named as the lead underwriters for the deal. Google is trying to do things differently as usual so they will use an online Dutch auction for the IPO in order to make the shares publicly available.
Although there are hundreds of publications on the IPO at the moment at Rugles we have chosen simply to mention the news for anyone that hasn't heard about it, and hopefully will offer you a good analysis of the situation as soon as we study the full text.
There is definitely going to be a lot of demand for Google shares and the unconventional process will definitely help. Will this be a spark for the future?
Posted by Basileios at 05:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 29, 2004
Google vs Yahoo! vs The Others
You can find a very interesting tool (I should say toy) in http://ranking.thumbshots.com/
Apart from giving you a quite pretty graphical represantation of the comparison between the results of the search engines it provides some very interesting statistics concerning the overlapping and unique links.
The results show small percentages of overlap between the search engines - fact that is actually not unexpected. The differences in the first 100 links in the search engine results pages are both due to the different algorithm used by search engines (and the fact that most pages have been optimized only for the Google algorithm) and the size/type of the database between search engines.
Posted by Basileios at 04:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 28, 2004
Business Innovation
Let me bring to your attention an excellent article by Dave Pollard on the 'Prescription for Business Innovation'.
This is a matter of a change in state of mind than a recipe. Here are the principles as mentioned in the artyicle:
1. Listen broadly for ideas.
2. Listen to "pathfinder" customers, competitors, and colleagues.
3. Listen to the front lines.
4. Understand who your actual and potential customers are.
5. Understand and respect what end-consumers want and need.
6. Understand what immediate customer will need.
7. Understand why these wants and needs aren't already met.
8. Organize those with a stake in solving the problem.
9. Organize the program for solving the problem.
10. Organize the resources needed to solve the problem.
11. Create an environment an capability for innovation.
12. Create lots of alternative solutions.
13. Exeriment: Try many things, learn fast from failures, tinker, iterate, combine, transfer.
14. Listen to potential customers and help them imagine.
15. Listen to acceptance criteria -- the "if"s.
16. Listen to "what could go wrong."
17. Design: Consider customer-valued attributes, cost, intuitive ease of use, ease of change, ease of enhancement.
18. Make the final go/no-go decision, then implement.
Posted by Basileios at 06:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 27, 2004
Google and Censorship
Until a couple of days ago when you searched for the word 'Jew' in Google you received as No1 result a 'Jewish conspiracy' antisemitic site. Today when you do the same search you get this:
The offensive site has been removed from the results and a Google explanation on why the results are the way were appeared. In the explanation page you will find Google explaining its algorithm and talks about the semantics behind the word 'Jew':
'If you use Google to search for "Judaism," "Jewish" or "Jewish people," the results are informative and relevant. So why is a search for "Jew" different? One reason is that the word "Jew" is often used in an anti-Semitic context. Jewish organizations are more likely to use the word "Jewish" when talking about members of their faith. The word has become somewhat charged linguistically, as noted on websites devoted to Jewish topics...'
All is fine up to hear and I am very happy to see this explanation by Google. However, I am more than unhappy to see the censorship of the results pages with the removal of the offensive website. I do not see any reason in this or any other case on why this censorship is a good thing and I certainly see no reason why Google should place itself in such a situatioon at the moment. I am definitely very dissapointed with this decision that Google has taken (and my dissapointment has nothing to do with the contents of the offending website in case we are misunderstood in this).
As we have done again in a past posting I am repeating the words of Benjamin Franklin: 'They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety'.
Rugles - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 05:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 26, 2004
Yahoo! Updates Instant Messenger
Yahoo! has updated their Instant Messaging service in a beta version that was launched today. The new IM is integrated with the resty of the Yahoo! services and also includes Search options in its interface.
It is apparent that Yahoo! is trying to push their new search engine technology in any way that they can and integrate it with the rest of their community services. I have to say though that there is something lacking from this rather traditional integration and promotion approach that Yahoo! is following. We have the feeling that there is something lacking from all this and it is nerve, energy, innovation and 'hipness' (is there such a word?). Yahoo! is too much a conventional company at the moment and they are definitely playing it safe.
Do you think their tactics is right?
Posted by Basileios at 07:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 23, 2004
Yahoo! New Look II
After experimenting for about 24hrs with the Yahoo! new look I feel I should mention two very annoying issues in the change:
- The ranking number is missing for each of the websites. I know Google doesn't have that either, but I quite liked the fact that Yahoo! did...
- You cannot select text from the Search Engine Results Pages, a function which i use very often.
I realize that this new Yahoo! look is just an experiment - and many people cannot view them yet - but if anybody in Yahoo! is listening...
Basil Drolias @ Rugles - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 06:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Search Engine Advertising Grows
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have released the Internet Ad Revenue Report including final figures for Q3, Q4 and full-year 2003. The overall industry revenues rose nearly twenty-one percent, ending 2003 at just under $7.3 billion. In February 2004, the IAB announced that the estimate for revenue in Q4 2003 was a record-setting $2.2 billion and the full-year 2003 was estimated at $7.2 billion.
Internet ad revenues broken down by ad formats for 2003 full year revenue are:
| 2002 | 2003 | |
| Display Ads (Banners) | 29% | 21% |
| Sponsorship | 18% | 10% |
| Classified | 15% | 17% |
| Slotting Fees | 8% | 3% |
| Keyword Search | 15% | 35% |
| Interstitial | 5% | 2% |
| 4% | 3% | |
| Rich Media | 5% | 8% |
| Referrals | 1% | 1% |
The 35% growth in Keyword Search is definitely worth noticing. It is an immediate result of all the advancements in the market segment (including Contextual advertising).
Posted by Basileios at 02:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 22, 2004
A Change in Yahoo! Looks
It seems that Yahoo! changed slightly its look and is now using expandable /collapsable div's with the extra information for each website:
There is also a new drop down box next to the search button that is there to chose the type of search.
Posted by Basileios at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gmail and Blogger
It seems as if the rumor we reported yesterday is definitely true as many readers reported that they were able to join Gmail through logging in Blogger. This expansion of the beta circle that Google is performing at the moment makes me believe that we are very close to the official public launch of Gmail.
What I find surprising in its magnitute is the number of comments (and personal emails) we received for yesterdays posting from people who are desparate to get a Gmail account. Gmail is definitely the most awaited service in the internet at the moment - and this proves again that the Google marketing technique of pre-announcing Gmail on April 1st certainly 'did the trick'.
It is also a sort of an eye opening experience to see that in todays 'free' internet world there is so much dissatisfaction about such a basic need as email yet the common user had no voice and no way of actually expressing this dissatisfaction.
The blogging phenomenon is definitely a 'common voice' and a way for individuals - and businesses - to express their likes and dislikes in ways that can actually make a difference (Search engine 'bombing' can be one of those but I will soon see this as part of customer action and not as a simple political prank).
Harry Tzetzos @ Rugles.com - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 04:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 21, 2004
Want a Gmail Account?
There is a rumour going round that if you have a Blogger 'active' account (not really sure on the definition of active) then simply log in your account. Some chosen users will get an invite to Gmail by a popup window - allegedly.
Sadly my attempts to witness the event - and join gmail were not succesful. maybe it will work for you...
Posted by Basileios at 09:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yahoo! Blogs and RSS feeds.
Yahoo! continues the 'advantage' it gives to weblogs and RSS feeds Some of you might have noticed over the past 10 days that the Yahoo! search engine results pages offer a new option for the web results that have RSS feeds:
As you can see there is an option to view the XML of the feed and also to add it to 'My Yahoo' which seems to be including a news aggregator as well.
This is in line with the situation which we reported last month in which Yahoo! seems to 'like blogs more than Google' these days. Admittedly the 2,000,000 existing blogs are injecting the web with a lot of content that Google seems to be trying to protect its SERPs from. Yahoo! on the other hand is trying to use the 'power of the blog' in a similar fashion to the one that Google was using a couple of months ago.
This is certainly a set of interesting developments on search engines and their treatment of blogs and I am sure we will see a few more ahead shortly.
Basil Drolias @ Rugles.com - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 04:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 20, 2004
Google Keyword Suggestions
As most of our readers have noticed the 'keyword suggestions' by Google which we reported a few days ago seemed to have dissapeared.
According to a recent Onestat report (brought to my attention by Andy Beal's weblog) it appears that the application of Google of sucha set of suggestions will drive single word keypharses totally out of business - so if you still think that you can SEO your website for a single word youy better think again on how useful this is (if not how possible).
However. I have to say that there are some major problems with the way that Google is trying to achieve this keyword suggestion (and I say this after playing with the feature for the couple hours that I managed to see it on my PC). The choice of keywords that are suggested by Google seem to be the 'most popular'. This a recipe that will drive more visitors to 'popular' searches (and eventually websites) but that does not necessarily mean that it will improve the search experience and results.
The Google keyword suggestion may be a step towards a different type of search engine but at this stage it looks like a half measure. I understand why Google has removed it from action at this stage. I hope it will come back with a lot more functionality than the one I happened upon last week.
Posted by Basileios at 02:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 19, 2004
Writing Web Content
(or would Faulkner make a good web author?)
The Internet has been around long enough to establish its own unique culture, state of mind and experience. Patterns of the visitors of Internet web pages have been monitored, studied, analyzed and synthesized by sociologists and 'cyberologists' in order to bring a 'zoological' set of results for the whole behavior and 'mating habits' of visitors and web pages.
It is however quite unfortunate that all those studies and results remain rather un-applied by the majority of the web site owners and authors that view the Internet as a new type of newspaper or magazine.
The Internet is definitely NOT a newspaper, a magazine or a book and there are definite rules for writing for the web that have to be followed in order to make a website 'succesful' (in whatever meaning one may give to this word).
I have assembled a list of the twelve commandments of writing for the web some of which actually haven't been followed here by the way. Feel free to peruse them, till you can feel at home with the ideas.
- Know thyself . It is important to have the clearest possible idea of what you are writing and for what reason. This may sound as an obvious point, but you will be amazed by the number of near-nonsense space fillers that exist over the web.
- Know thy reader. Make sure you understand before hand who you are going to write for and adapt to her level and ideas. Do not try to persuade people they are wrong.
- Be concise and clear. You do not want to write long and complicated paragraphs. Be as economical as you can in your articulation.
- The first words are important. Users often just scan the first words of the paragraph and never finish it if they aren't hooked by it. Find the mot juste.
- Be short. Long documents with plenty of scroll are usually abandoned. Nobody reads more than a couple of screen lengths. If you absolutely have to do it, break your text into more pages.
- Use bullet points and numbered lists . Readers will get more out of what you are trying to pass to them.
- Emphasize your text but do not over do it. Too many bold or italics in one page will disorient the readers and decrease the importance of the real emphasis points.
- Do not exaggerate. Try to be honest and state simple facts. People mistrust pompous expressions and promotional talk. 'You can't fool all the people all the time'
- Use clear fonts and plain backgrounds. I cannot even remember the times I abandoned a document written in yellow font over a textured background
- Integrate your text with any images . Your text and any images you will embed, will have to be properly integrated so that the image will not take precedence over the text (unless of course this is something you are aiming for). A picture may be a thousand words, but nobody likes someone that talks too much.
- Use hyperlinks properly. The language and trade mark of the internet is the hyperlinked text, so you should take advantage of the power of the medium. Keep in mind though that your visitors are one click away from your site. For ever
- Proofread and proofread again. It is an obvious point but it must be stressed that your documents must be free of typos and bad grammar. Respect your readers.
In other words, as much as I hate to admit it, William Faulkner, for some of the above reasons, wouldn't make a great web author (For unbelievers just checked the hyperlinked version of his masterpiece The Sound and the Fury). On the other hand Hemingway would make the perfect web author somehow. The rest of us can just try to compete.
Basil Drolias @ Rugles.com - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 05:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 16, 2004
Tomorrow's Google and the Future of Search Technology
Seth Godin isn't the only one to be able to predict the future of search engines. This is an article we have been preparing for some time about what we consider important in the future of searches. I would appreciate your comments and suggestions:
The new Google caught me in the middle of preparing an article on the future of Google. The new look and additions are a glimpse of the things to come and they definitely show strong signals of the issues will be important for search technologies in the years to come.
At the moment I find the future of search engines technology a bit like an one-way road. Pages and content keep on getting added on the Internet with a rate that seems very hard to be slowed down. At the same time, the advancement of Search Engine Optimization as a standard marketing technique by almost all online businesses has resulted in a flood of correct results pages for keywords that are hard to index (and on the users point of view to navigate through). Google, as we all remember, caused havoc with the algorithm change last November that pushed hundreds if not thousands of correct pages into the double figure page numbers of the search engine results pages. These days one can find relevant results for some keywords down to page 50 (or more).
The noise of signals in the Search Engine Results pages is so deafening at the moment that I believe that it is an obvious issue for Google and the other search engines to work on, in order to offer a better service to their users. There are two important avenues that can be followed in order for this to happen: localization and thematization.
Localisation. Local searches in Google have been part of the Google labs for some time but soon we will see them integrated in the standard Google search. A statistic I read some time ago claimed that more than 50% of searches refer to things that have to do with a specific area. Proper integration of this localization will require a rather important change in the state of mind of the search engine users (and webmasters) since zip codes, cities, states etc, will start entering the keyword terms in an more-or-less automatic way. Organized properly this can lead to a massive dilution of the SERPs and definitely a better service to users.
Thematization. Every keyword/keyphrase has a meaning. Today, searches are simply glorified word comparisons without a deeper sense of meaning. Artificial Intelligence solutions can lead to a breaking up of the Search Engine Results Pages depending on the meaning of the keyphrase used or the website found. Mooter for example is a new search engine that uses such a thematic approach for the results pages and also learns from the choices that the user makes when chosing from the SERPs (Their results are definitely not great at this stage by the way). Google is bound to follow a similar track very soon and their Personalized services that were introduced in Google labs are a step towards this direction.
Will all this imply that there is going to be a new algorithm change in Google? Almost certainly. The current algorithm is allegedly very close to a thematic expert hirerachization of websites, so if a thematic Google goes into action user feedback can even be introduced in modifying weights and setting themes and expert pages in the algorithm.
Naturally both localization and thematization are not easy tasks to get right. Unfortunately there is definitely a great lack of semantics in todays WWW but search engine choices can definitely drive the semantic web forward. (Will this mean that Google will start indexing XML files?)
Science fiction? Possibly. I do have a vision though of a new generation of intelligent search engines, in which searches will be done in natural language over a semantic new Internet and with results that are as close to my needs as the items I keep on my Desktop. Google can lead the way.
Harry Tzetzos @ Rugles.com - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 03:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 15, 2004
Google Launches Keyphrase Suggestions
Another change in Google that just seems to have occured is an extension of the spell checker routine that was suggesting the corrects spelling in case a user mistyped a word while searching.
The new addition offers a few more specific search phrases if a user gives a rather 'general' search phrase.
This comes very close to an article by Seth Godin a couple of days ago about the fact that people 'don't know how to search' and the difficulties that the vast Google database has.
Well, apparently Google will try and teach people how to search. Lets try with Seth's example and look for 'shoes':
Google narrows down our search by suggesting some popular options:
Clicking on the Google suggestion on 'running shoes' gives us a new set of keywords that narrows our search even further:
This is a rather neat way of splitting the searches and diluting the results. Google is certain to follow a technique similar to the one offered in Mooter and Kartoo in the very near future...
Harry Tzetzos @ Rugles.com - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 12:58 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 14, 2004
Page 23 Meme
Well, here is a very interesting blog 'virus' which we just caught from Frank Patrick's Focused Performance:
This is the mean of which I approve; our life should observe a happy medium between the ways of a sage and the ways of the world at large; all men should admire it, but they should understand it also.
From Seneca Epistulae Morales - Epistle V, Page 23, (complete) Sentence 5
And here is what the meme says:
- Grab the nearest book.
- Open the book to page 23.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
And more results on this based on feedster.
Posted by Basileios at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Google - Gmail Integration Dream
There is so much happening around the whole Gmail idea at the moment that it is hard to keep up with the news. Irrespective of the overall legal matters I was thinking of a few plans for the future integration of the Google. For example
What if....
- Orkut becomes available to everybody (no invite...)
- Orkut messanging is done through Gmail
- Gmail offers mail forwarding for other domain names
- Froogle and News results are linked with the Adsense technology
- spam is excluded by using Adsense technology
- Blogger uses Gmail for publishing and Gmail uses Blogger functionalities
Is this an interesting future? Almost certainly. Microsoft beware... Here comes Google...
Posted by Basileios at 05:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 13, 2004
Gmail Accesibility Update
I would like to bring to your attention a very interesting article by mark Pilgrim who is beta testing Gmail and talks about its look and feel.
According to Mark Gmail is built almost entirely in javascript thus making the use of JAWS (an online reading system for the visually impaired) extremely difficult (if not inaccessible by the sound of it). Here is Mark's final thoughts:
Gmail is the least web-like web application I have ever seen. It requires both Javascript and cookies in order to load at all. It uses frames in such a way that prevents bookmarking and breaks the back button, and frames can not be loaded in isolation because every frame relies on scripts defined in other frames. The entire application appears to have been designed to thwart reverse engineering (of the YahooPops and Hotmail Popper variety).
Furthermore, the most innovative feature of Gmail—the global keyboard shortcuts—appears to have been designed by vi users (j moves down, k moves up, and we are expected to memorize multi-key sequences for navigation). Yet by using fake links everywhere, Gmail throws away the most basic web feature, breaks useful browser-level innovations like Mozilla’s “Find as you type”, and breaks third-party products like JAWS and WindowEyes. So the target market for Gmail appears to be vi users who use Internet Explorer, and have a working pair of eyes.
In short, the only way to use Gmail is the way that the Gmail designers use Gmail. The only way Gmail could be less accessible is if the entire site were built in Flash.
Very interesting points and certainly sometyhing that Google must work on.
Harry Tzetzos @ Rugles.com - Website Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 01:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 08, 2004
Yahoo! Reports 1st Quarter Results
Yahoo has reported on their financial results for the 1st quarter of 2004 with values that exceed their expectations. The main points include
- Revenues were $758 million in the first quarter of 2004, compared to $283 million in the same period of 2003.
- Revenues excluding traffic acquisition costs ("TAC") were $550 million in the first quarter of 2004, compared to $283 million for the same period of 2003.
- Gross profit for the first quarter of 2004 was $476 million, compared to $240 million for the same period of 2003.
- Operating income for the first quarter of 2004 was $132 million, compared to $55 million for the same period of 2003.
- Operating income before depreciation and amortization for the first quarter of 2004 was $211 million, compared to $85 million for the same period of 2003.
- Cash flow from operating activities for the first quarter of 2004 was $236 million, compared to $99 million for the same period of 2003.
- Free cash flow for the first quarter of 2004 was $197 million, compared to $78 million for the same period of 2003.
They have also reported a two-for-one stock split.
The report is probably going to push markets into a bull phase which is definitely needed at this stage.
I am eagerly waiting for the search engine use results at the moment so we can see exactly what the effect of the Google abandonment by Yahoo! is (even though it all boils down to the numbers...)
Posted by Basileios at 12:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google Updates PageRank Values
Google has just updated the PageRank values and the associated backward links in the indexed pages. This usually does not have major implications in the indexing but it is a good idea to keep an eye on your rankings.
Posted by Basileios at 12:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 07, 2004
Is your Website Missing from Yahoo!?
More and more website owners are surfacing, whose sites do not appear in the new Yahoo! although they have plenty of inbound links and have been part of Google (and subsequently the older Yahoo!) for some time. At the time of the Yahoo! adoption of the Inktomi engine it became known that Yahoo! wishes to increase the number of pages that are indexed by Yahoo! at the moment . (A simple comparison can be done by searching for the word the in both engines. Google locates 5.660.000.000 documents for this search and yahoo! 1.860.000.000 which indicates that even if the numbers should not be taken for face value there is a lag in the number of pages listed by Yahoo! at the moment). This is the reason why the new Yahoo! companion will act as an assistant in getting as many pages as possible crawled by the new Yahoo! and indexed in the Search engine result pages.
In any case there are some chances that your page may be missing from yahoo! at the moment so we bring you a list of steps you may try to take for getting your site listed.
- First of all make sure that your site is indeed missing from Yahoo! The algorithm change might have pushed your pages down in the ranks of the SERPs so you may simply need to work on search engine optimizing your pages in order to raise your rankings.
- Make sure that your website is not penalized. The usual reasons for getting yourself banned apply in Yahoo! as well (cloaking, spamming, link farms, dodgy pages). Yahoo! is also hard on affiliate websites so this is also a reason for getting yourself banned.
- Clean up your website. This means that you should be cleaning up your HTML files from elements which crawlers are not very happy with. This includes javascript, applets, flash objects etc. (For example you may want to place all your javascript in external files and call those through your HTML page). It is also a good idea to have your HTML validated for the W3C guidelines.
- Submit your website to established directories (dmoz, goguides, joeant, yahoo directory etc.). This will give you a set of quality inward links which are definitely going to help with crawling and indexing.
- Depending on your urgency and budget submit to Yahoo!. You may go for the free submission (with no guaranteed approval date) or the Paid Inclusion program that will list you within 4 days (but you will have to pay both for the submission and for the clicks in the website).
- Monitor and examine your logfiles for accesses of the Yahoo! Slurp crawler. This should be done on a daily basis as it is important to understand exactly whether Yahoo! is seeing your site (and how).
If none of the options seem to work for you consult an expert but remember it needs time to get things going especially at this new stage of things. There are many small details particular to your website that may be interfering so an expert will be able to investigate and let you know what may be going wrong.
Rugles.com - Search Engine Positioning Services
Posted by Basileios at 06:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 06, 2004
Why Gmail is the 'Right Move' for Google.
I stumbled upon a very interesting post by Phil Wolfe concerning the extension of Google and the incorporation of Gmail in its services. I copy these extracts for you:
'For Google, this has three strategic benefits:
...
'Where Yahoo uses their toolbar to access their many services/properties, Google's toolbar will observe your browser experiences. And that includes now sending and reading email, surfing, news watching, reading and writing weblogs, following and posting to usenet, and shopping. With email, orkut and your toolbar, they now can create a compound profile of your interests. '
Phil is absolutely right and on target. Google is not concerned about the 'portal' like structure that entities like Yahoo! (and more) have been following for years. For Google the important element is knowledge and information management and the aggregation of products/services that relate to them. As I stressed in the past the difficulty will be in the integration of the rather randomly attached services which are there at the moment but Google is definitely no ordinary company and will have aces up its sleaves even for this. I just find it is reluctant to do so at this stage (and is probably right in doing so).
By the way if Microsoft should 'beware' of a company it should be Google...
Harry Tzetzos @ Rugles.com - Search Engine Positioning Services.
Posted by Basileios at 05:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 05, 2004
Banning Online Gambling II
A very interesting entry on the ban by Google and Yahoo! I have to say we couldnt agree more with this.
Rugles.com - Search Engine Positioning
Posted by Basileios at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google/Yahoo! Ban Online Gambling Ads
The news of the day is the announcement by both Yahoo! and Google that they will stop serving adverts to online gambling websites blaming a 'lack of clarity in US regulations.
I personally have to say that any ban that emerges like that for content of the World Wide Web cannot be welcomed very easily. This is a rather vaguely explained decision that opens up the doors to a future of online censorship and 'closed door' decisions.
Google and Yahoo! are at the moment directly responsible for a large percentage of the sites we find, the adverts that we are served and the news we read. Google is also there to scan our content and decide on what should be added next to it (a.k.a. Adsense) and soon will be scanning mail accounts (through their Gmail service). Too much power in too few hands...
Banning online casino ads (annoying and stupid as they are) is definitely not going to stop their traffic and certainly gives the wrong note concerning free speach and the right to chose. And if online casinos are under attack today who knows what will be in front of the the censors' pencil next? I am certainly not trying to act paranoid in this, but simply to indicate future situations that will be less than ideal.
Will people care? I don't think so. For most internet users this will be an issue that is going to be forgotten (if not totally missed).
Unfortunately the words of Benjamin Franklin come up in mind: 'They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety'.
Posted by Basileios at 05:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 02, 2004
Gmail and Parkinson's Law
Is 1Gb of space big enough?
Do you remember Bill Gates back in the early 80ies saying that '64kb should be enough to please anybody'? (going No2 as understatement of the century in my books).
I have been hearing so much over the past couple of days about the fact that the 1Gb of space given to us for free by Gmail is 'massive'. I beg to differ and I call on my defense Parkinson's law: 'Shit expands to fill the space provided' (in its most appropriate version).
I would like to add to the playful mood of this Friday: Google is spoiling us and is contributing to a life of mismanagement, inadequate organisation and low ratios of signals to noise. Our society should be targeting economy of scales and resources and not mindless storage of slightly humorus avi files 'that may come useful at some point of our later life'. Maybe the free 2Mb of hotmail space and the constant deletion of annoying buddha-inspired mails from remote friends is not such a bad idea on achieving the true buddha nature.
Am I being serious? Of course not (or maybe this has hit closer to home than I intented?).
Posted by Basileios at 10:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Gmail and the End of Anonimity
A very interesting post by Seth Godin, guru of Viral Marketing, on the opportunity that Google has to set a mail standard with Gmail. More than setting a standard this idea is good enough to turn the 'anonymous' internet upside down.
Seth Godin blames a lot on anonymity (and has done so before) and he may have a serious point there. Will Google follow this track? I strongly doubt it.
Posted by Basileios at 06:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gmail Screenshot
The first available Gmail screenshot:
The first page of Gmail has the login/password forms and testing has already started.
Posted by Basileios at 03:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Gmail - not a hoax.
Well, it is definitely established now that Gmail is not a hoax but a real service that will be launched by Google. This is a giant leap Google is taking and is definitely an offensive move against the kings of mail Yahoo! and Hotmail that have both 'developed' (or are currently developing) search technologies.
I am not sure whether the hoax virus that spread like crazy over the internet was intentional or not (I kind of feel we played a part in this since I was one of the very first to raise doubts on the service just a few minutes after the press release was issued by Google). It was certainly something that made gmail so popular with very little effort and very little investment from Google. I have read articles in which Google was criticized on their 'credibility' for letting this 'hoax rumor' spread like that but I am sure that the Google guys will be laughing on their way to the bank with these criticisms.
However, success is not guarranteed for Google. It is difficult to imagine thousands of users changing email addresses over night from Yahoo! and MSN to Google but Google will have a very strong advantage for new sign-ups. I feel I must stress again, that integration with the rest of the services will be a crucial factor in the success of this attempt so Google will need to place extra weight and care on this one.
For the moment we are simply waiting in the vain hope to be one of the chosen few that will beta test teh service.
Rugles.com - Search Engine Optimization and Web Marketing Services
Posted by Basileios at 01:48 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 01, 2004
Search Technology Stripped Down
Well, I never knew that Jeeves (our AskJeeves.com favorite butler) wears 'ask' boxer shorts:
Excellent April 1st look. Search technology stripped down.
Posted by Basileios at 07:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gmail. Is it a hoax?
Speculation is rising on whether Google's Gmail - announced yesterday but with a 1st April date on the Press Release - is a hoax or not. (At least we are not alone in thinking that it is a joke...).
The issue at this stage though is not important. If it is a hoax then it is definitely one of the best ever, since it reached so many 1st pages in media like CNN. On the other hand if it isn't a hoax then the hoax speculation has definitely helped in creating an 'idea virus' and has marketed the Gmail concept even before it is launched.
One way or another Google wins this one. Is Yahoo! listening to this marketing approach? Better take notes guys...
Rugles.com - Search Engine Optimization Services
Posted by Basileios at 07:16 AM | Comments (25) | TrackBack