The Technium

McLuhan at 100 - It's Marshall McLuhan's 100th birthday. What would McLuhan have done? A flash crowd meetup? Or republish an old interview from Playboy in 1969? You may be amazed by The Technium article. If you don't read anything else today...

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Haitian President Joseph Martelly met in Port-au-Prince on Thursday (July 21) to discuss reconstruction efforts and visit a housing expo. A year and a half after the massive 7.0 earthquake decimated the capital city and killed hundreds of thousands of people, 635,000 of the country's poorest residents are still living in tent camps. Clinton, who as Co-Chairman of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission has devoted much of his efforts into alleviating poverty in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation, lauded the efforts of Martelly, who took office earlier this year. (Watch the Video via NTN24)

Spat of the Day: Google+ Removes Business Profiles via the Wall Street Journal (blog) Yesterday Google axed pages set up by Sesame Street and Ford Motor Company as well as the blogs Mashable and Search Engine Land. The reason, Google manager Christian Oestlien later explained in a post and a YouTube video, was that the “platform at the ...

TechCrunch

Long Before Google+, Google Declared War On Facebook With OpenSocial - Google and Facebook are at war. We've known this for a while. Of course, neither side will admit to it, but they are. Winner takes the Internet.
Blogging Is Hard – With A Capital H! That's the word from Marya, posting on FamousBloggers!

Marya is a passionate writer, blogger and a thinker. When she is not writing online , she is often found mimicking the properties of a bookworm, or enjoying delicious food - cooked by capable restaurant people. Catch more of her posts at Writing happiness. Follow her @WritingH.

Scoop: Oracle scrubs site of embarrassing Java blog

via CNET- Jul 22, 2011 by Jay Greene The beginning of Sun's Jonathan Schwartz's 2007 blog post praising Google's use of Java in Android. In the midst of its nasty legal battle with Google, Oracle seems to have resorted to a bit of Web site scrubbing. ...

chinaSMACK

The Great Pretenders: China’s “Unfire-able” English Teachers - The majority of China’s private ESL institutions are considerably less legitimate.These schools hire English teachers with one, basic requirement: a white ...

NetActive 22 July 2011

Top Viruses
1.	WORM_NYXEM.E
2.	HTML_NETSKY.P
3.	WORM_NETSKY.DAM
4.	PAK_GENERIC.001

One of China's most promising young gymnasts, Zhang Shangwu seemed destined for Olympic glory before his career ended in injury. He has been found begging on the streets of Beijing, prompting criticism of the country's Soviet-style sports system.

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Yemen Protests 2011

via Global Voices : 18 July 2011 20:40 GMT

This post also available in:

Español	· Protestas en Yemen - 2011
اردو	·

Young supporter for Yemen protests, Washington DC, USA. Flickr: Messay Shoakena (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Table of Contents

• Latest Global Voices Posts About Yemen
• Featured Global Voices Posts - Yemen Protests 2011
• Resources:
  • Twitter - Including live feed

State of NoVa | Va. aims to become Hollywood East

Washington Post (blog)- Jul 18, 2011- Sure, there are a lot of blogs and a lot of blah-blah-blah out there. But here at The State of NoVa, we've culled through a few hundred or so, and bring you our list of the Top 31 fun and fascinating blogs...

TechCrunch

Inbox Overload Begone: Taskforce Exits Beta, Goes Pro With Paid Version - Email is an essential part of our daily communication, but it can also be a real pain in the ass.

QUOTE OF THE DAY ::: This comes from the 'comments' section in a post appearing on Lisa Irby's blog ::: "On Google you can connect with people who are actively looking to solve their problem. But people don’t go to Facebook to solve problems. They probably go there more to avoid their problems."

NetActive 18 July 2011

Joely Schwenk auditioning for NBC's "The Voice"

A local singer with a large following in the Capital Region hopes to extend her fan club as she prepares to audition for the hit NBC Show "The Voice."

TechCrunch

Zappedy Acquired By Groupon. What’s Zappedy? - An anonymous tipster tells us Zappedy, a company that offered various technology products for local businesses, has been acquired by Groupon.

Twitter and Microsoft Hammering Out Bing Integration

PC Magazine

By David Murphy Having recently lost its contract with Google that gave the search giant a stream of tweets to throw alongside the company's search results, Twitter is treading shaky waters in its ongoing negotiations with Microsoft over a similar use ...

Tim Pawlenty tries Twitter to tweak Romney and talk about jobs

Los Angeles Times

Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty took to his @TimPawlenty Twitter account Friday to issue a challenge to fellow Republican contender Mitt Romney. He inserted a linkfrom his recent conversation about the debt ceiling vote with CNBC's Larry Kudlow

Miss Info

New Music: Mac Miller “Just A Kid”, plus Kelly Rowland Feat. Big Sean, Curren$y & More… - Mac Miller’s Twitter following is steadily growing fast, yesterday he hit 600k followers so to the fans he released “Just A Kid”.

El Punto Es [es] publishes an interesting interview with the Puerto Rican DJ Marcos Flores, who lives in Madrid, Spain.

In case you missed these ::: Harry Potter #8 posts:

Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot

Thank You, JK Rowling - Last night as my family and I got ready to watch *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2*, I remembered anticipation of my children, especiall...

Dave Lucas' Notes

Pop Clips » 16 July 11 - *HP Slideshow from a recent New York Magazine!* *Pottter shatters records...* * * The eighth film in the Harry Potter series broke single-day box office records..

Tags: Joely Schwenk, The Voice

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

NetActive 17 July 2011

BlogLab ::: eXperiment FAIL

"The mechanics of search engines and emergence of trends are changing the quality of googles." ~ J. Felonious Fisch

What?

Search engines like google are powered by algorithms that have been refined to a point of near pseudo-self-awareness.

Earlier this year the title I gave to a particular post atracted search engines (and visitors) like flies: "Paris Hilton Sex Arab Britney Nude Charlie Sheen Photo Video Shakira Hot Free Hareega Bush Libya Man Men Girl Teen Obama Osama Sexxx XXX Nokia TV Bin" - it was done intentionally, experimentally, after I'd seen a similar headline on another blog. I tethered it to a post about traffic and my dear internet friends Windy and Lainy.

And it worked like a charm. I got 7X the usual daily traffic for nearly 4 days in a row before it trickled off.

Fast forward to THIS WEEK. I chanced upon an article all about tinkering with searches, search engines, social networks and SEO. Before proceeding, read "Experiments on Google+ and Twitter Influencing Search Rankings"

A very interesting article, yes?

Inspired by that article, I constructed a new post, entitled "Assist a Mom Euclidean Taeniasis of Galapagos Portly Domesticus Connochaetes mta Elizabeth Smart Shuttle Launch Rupert Murdoch Euclidean Perry Euxlis".

Now, based on what you've seen so far, you'd think my new post would be an SEO "Slam dunk". It was not. It attacted ZERO search engine-directed traffic!Here's my analysis:

New algorithms recently put into service are pouring through topics, headlines and keywoprds faster than mice through a sack of grain. By the time I published MY experimental post, the terms seomoz used in its experiment had decayed in importance and relevance to such degree as they no longer mattered.

The "curve of deterioration" was short for my first post, and my second, experimental post could best be compared to a horse race: there was a race on Tuesday, I entered my horse, but me and my horse didn't show up athe track until Thursday. We ran in record time! We beat everybody. But we missed the actual race, so "nothing counts."

MORAL: You're going to have to get up awfully early (or be extremely lucky) to impress the search engines!

Good Luck, and BLOG ON!

ANOTHER HEAD-SCRATCHER ::: I've seen a lot of 'contest posts' where blogs encourage bloggers (and others) to win a cash prize by essentially making the visitors jump thru hoops in competition for the prize. So, I decided to offer my own unique contest. I decided to give USD $100 away to one lucky player. But there's been no 'buzz' and ZERO search-engine traffic. And although the URL is high-ranked on one of the stat-widgets appearing in the right-hand column on this humble weblog, I haven't seen one single instance of anyone arriving on the blog from another URL to that particular post. Frankly, I'm PUZZLED!

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

Google Doesn't Love Me Anymore

Pakistan: Embracing The Google+ Circles

Pakistan: Embracing The Google+ Circles

Written for Global Voices by Faisal Kapadia · South Asia

The past couple of weeks might be forever remembered as a game changer in the realm of social media in Pakistan. It was when Google rolled out its all encompassing and challenging social behemoth of a network called Google Plus. Pakistan is crazy about social networking, so it is of little wonder that the launch of Google+ garnered so much reaction. read »

Google+ and the Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/10/2011 - 17:23

In 1957, Joe Bohlen, George Beal and Everett Rogers published The Diffusion Process for the Agriculture Extension Service of Iowa State College. It focused on which farmers were buying hybrid corn. The work was later generalized into Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers. Typically, adopters of innovations are organized into five groups, the innovators, the early adopters, the early majority, the late majority and the laggards. It seems to be a useful way of looking at even the innovations in online social networks of today, somewhat. read »

Jovanka Gulicoska informed [mk] on her blog about the upcoming All-Women Hacker Night, scheduled for Wednesday, July 13, in the KIKA Hacklab in Skopje (FB event). According to the official announcement [mk], “all girls interested in Free and Open Source Software, GNU/Linux, but also in technology, computers, hacking (not cracking), networks, servers, electronics, free culture and free society, gadgets, robots, etc. are welcome.”

• Filip Stojanovski

Six Reasons Every Brand Should Blog

Huffington Post (blog)

Despite the evidence in favor of blogging, with the rise of Twitter and Facebook, many brands are reluctant to blog. While blogs can be a lot of work, they provide a foundation for information on the web and an owned platform for your social business. ..

Twitter reaches 1 million registered applications

ZDNet (blog)

He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. ...

NetActive 11 July 2011

I couldn't believe this when I first read Brankica's post. "Google+ personal branding mistake: "I have seen numerous people, many of them my blogging friends, joining the new Google+ network and using a profile photo I have never seen before.

This might be mistake for some. If you are not a well known and recognized name like Matt Cutts or Chris Brogan, you might want to stick with your “default” photo.

It will make people recognize you easier."

I've seen it myself, and I know it's happening. What's wrong with people? I left Brankica a comment:

"I think the lesson here, from your very first paragraph, is “choose your ‘friends’ carefully.” This obsession with racking up huge numbers of twitter followers and facebook friends is ridiculous, unless you are a celebrity.

Every now and again I go through the list of 300 I follow (that’s my personal ‘cap’) on twitter and unfollow those who are mostly re-tweets and adverts. Of the 600 people following me, I calculate that around 400 are “junk” followers, and every single day I pick up three or four followers who are counting on auto-software (which I do not use) to follow them back. they drop off in a week or so.

I’m with you 100% on BRANDING! I see the same thing – alternative photos and logos! People, this is NOT the time or place to make adjustments to your brand."

Having said all that, it is worthwhile to note that GOOGLE SMELLS BLOOD: they think they've found a chink in Facebook's armour and they're trying to exploit it.

But there are TWO paths Google's Social Network could take:

PATH "A" --- Google WAVE or BUZZ --- each was supposed to be the biggest thing since the invention of the wheel. Both fizzled, big time!

PATH "B" --- Gmail --- it wiped the floor with the competition (and you can even point to the way Google itself took over the search engine market, seemingly coming out of nowhere, still #1 today!)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ::: "The biggest hurdle for Google+ is getting users, of course. But it is integrating the service with Gmail, which already has 240 million unique users world-wide, according to comScore. Meanwhile, the user experience on Facebook is a victim of the site's success. Users have accumulated so many online "friends" it can be difficult to organize them. And users often feel assaulted by too much or irrelevant social information, like Zynga game updates. Ultimately, Google+ is a chance for social networkers to start over.

This doesn't mean people will drop out of Facebook overnight. Gmail users didn't necessarily drop their Yahoo email addresses. Indeed, Yahoo Mail still has more unique visitors, but its growth has been stagnant, whereas Gmail continues to expand quickly."

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

Google Vs. Facebook ::: Don't Be Socially Awkward!

It's on! Battle for control of the interverse!

Stargate TV-show fans know that as Teal'c has told the Jaffa many times that the Goa'uld may be powerful but they are NOT gods, I will tell you bloggers that Darren Rowse and Steve Ruebel may be a-list respected bloggers, but they also are NOT gods.

You hear about it whenever Rowse and Ruebel are right about something, but it gets "forgotten" when thay are not (anybody remember "lifestreaming" which was going to replace blogging? hahahahaa!)

Why Lifestream? To Model Leonardo Da Vinci - Steve Rubel

www.steverubel.com/why-lifestream-to-model-leonardo-da-vinci - Cached

Jun 26, 2009 – There have been a number of posts since I wrote yesterday that I am quitting blogging in favor of lifestreaming. A few of you wrote in ...

And who can forget that groundbreaker, Google BUZZ?

Google Buzz: We Might Be On To Something

www.dailyblogtips.com/google-buzz/ - Cached

Feb 11, 2010 – To illustrate my point: I received a Google Wave invite early on from a friend,... Darren Rowse also posted a similar post on Problogger. ...

Now, in July 2011, everybody's suddenly an expert on Google +1! It's amazing! They're spilling out of the woodwork! (there's also a lot of confusion about the Google+1 button and the Google facebook alternative. Are they one and the same? Related? Totally different? What is YOUR understanding of that? Care to leav it in comments, please?)

I was moved to comment on one of these "Google expert" articles. I wrote (see image above) that bloggers shouldn't act like lemmings and walk off digital cliffs on the say-so of Rowse or Rubel.

Here's a new knee-slapper for ya! Rubel now thinks TWITTER should be SCARED!

He bloggeth thus: "Social media networks have typically have one of two lineages - not both. They either first catch on with teens and twenty-somethings or they catch on with nerds (of which I count myself as one). Eventually there’s overlap.

Group A Graduates (Youth) Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and now Tumblr I would argue

Group B Graduates (Geeks) Blogs, Twitter, Friendfeed (RIP) and now Google+ I would say

I am seeing a lot of the same patterns here as when Twitter took off at SxSW several years ago. Except this time it’s much faster! Media, brands and celebs are jumping in. And, by it’s nature, Google+ can be a much more public network than Facebook will ever be."

"The bigger they are, the harder they FAIL."



Tags: problogger, Micro Persuasion



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Google Vs. Facebook Vs. Twitter

Big Brother 13 premieres tonight (July 7) on CBS
Did you know that those so-called "scraper" blogs could actually be your friends? And those fake twitter followers too?

Hello! Thanks for dropping by! How on earth did YOU arrive HERE? Can you tell me by leaving a message in my "comments" area below?

You may have noticed that I am running a few experiments here on this humble weblog. Here is one. The fascination with these experiments has temporarily sidetracked my blog redesign plans. And the I wonder if I should really bother with a re-design at all, considering... ah yes, considering WHAT, you ask? Well, that "WHAT" is something I am not willing to share right at this moment.

COMING SOON: a contest where you could win $100!

Assist a Mom Euclidean Taeniasis of Galapagos Portly Domesticus Connochaetes mta Elizabeth Smart Shuttle Launch Rupert Murdoch Euclidean Perry Euxlis

Get Invited!

By selectively shutting netizens out, Google has generated much more buzz for its warrior to go up against Facebook. But it's tough to get "invited"...

A handful of media companies have begun to pitch their tents inside Google+. Among them::: Mashable (an Edelman client) and The Next Web.

If you are in China - FORGET ABOUT Google+



Tags: google+, facebook killer



Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

How to get that Google+ Invite