On June 24, Google confirmed their business was being investigated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Allegedly, the FTC is trying to gather information on Google’s search algorithms, updates, how they work, etc. This investigation isn’t the result of a particular crime or the opening of an official case, but has been encouraged by other organizations who are claiming [ Read More ]
Archive for the ‘Latest News’ Category
Unless you’re Steve Jobs, Larry Page, or some other CEO with an internationally recognizable brand – and if you are, I’m not really sure why you’re reading our little blog – you can ignore the recent announcement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers concerning some new top-level domains. Quick refresher: ICANN oversees the Internet and examples of [ Read More ]
Facebook will likely go public during the first quarter of 2012, and some are estimating its value at more than $100 billion. Now, as you likely know, I’m no finance expert; I’m no stock market expert; I’m no IPO expert. And I’ve been trying to figure out how the social networking site is worth more than the whole GDP of [ Read More ]
Google has a long history of failed social media attempts – perhaps most prominent are Google Wave and Google Buzz. Google recently announced +1, but it’s too soon to tell how that is going to work out. They were late to the social networking party, mostly because they were concerned about other ventures (like creating the world’s largest search engine) [ Read More ]
On Monday, Peter Shankman of HARO wrote an article titled “Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A ‘Social Media Expert‘”. Feel free to read the whole thing, but the crux of the article is this: most people who call themselves “Social Media Experts” are idiots and much of what they do is just common sense. Today, SEOmoz.org wrote a rebuttal [ Read More ]
Last week, The Daily Beast broke the story about Facebook hiring a PR firm to smear Google. Meant to be a secret, Facebook worked with Burson-Marsteller to generate this negative buzz about Google. When the plot was discovered, a Facebook spokesman cited two reasons for the scheme: first, [Facebook] believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise [ Read More ]
I’ve written before about Apple’s marketing strategy (which boils down to selling an overpriced, slightly-above-average product, only to belittle it as a shoddy and sub-par product when they release the marginally better version a year later). It seems their business model has led to them pass Google and become the world’s most valuable brand. There’s something to be said for [ Read More ]
I don’t really know how hackers work. I don’t know what information or access they need to tap into your computer. I don’t know what systems they use to get into your data or use your Internet connection. I do know, however, that it doesn’t take a hacker to connect to a wireless router that isn’t password protected. And, as [ Read More ]
There have been some recent accusations that Glenn Beck stole online content from various sources without appropriate attribution, passing the content off as his own. This would be news if it didn’t already happen all the time. I spent more than three years in the news magazine/newspaper publishing world before leaving the soul-sucking journalism industry for something much more stable. [ Read More ]
A few months ago, Google launched a new Chrome extension which would allow users to block specific websites from their own search results. The announcement included the statement: we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results. Well, this week they announced: we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites [ Read More ]
If this post comes across as slightly political, I apologize; the eminent shut down of the federal government of the United States has been on my mind (and little else) all day. YouTube (which, remember, is owned by Google) announced today that the video website will begin offering live streaming. This means it will be easier for people to watch [ Read More ]
The CEO of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, goes to Zimbabwe every year to kill an elephant. While he may be motivated by the chest-thumping, testosterone-building, inadequacy-overcompensating thrill that comes from big game hunting, he (allegedly) is also motivated by a desire to help the local people. Apparently, elephants will occasionally trample through a village’s crops at night, destroying them and affecting [ Read More ]
