Archive for August, 2009
Microsoft Lobbyists Meet to Thwart Google; Politics as Usual Ensues
Daily Finance, an AOL site, is reporting that Microsoft’s lobbyists hold weekly meetings where the discussion revolves around taking on Google. In attendance are consultants and others who oppose Google. The meetings have become known as “screw Google” meetings by DC insiders.
I used to work in politics. I used to work in DC. These type of meetings happen all the time, in all sorts of industries and with all sorts of issues. It’s not a Microsoft or Google thing. It’s not a Democrat or Republican thing. It’s a politics thing.
Google lobbyists meet to discuss Microsoft, I would assume. If they don’t, then Google should fire them for being crappy at their job.
Move on, there’s nothing to see here. Just politics as usual in the nation’s capital.
Proposed Bill to Give White House Authority to Control Internet in Emergency
A proposed Bill in the U.S. Senate would give the White House control of the internet in the case of emergency. The bill, S.773 introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Olympia Snow (R-ME) is pretty vague, which is alarming to internet companies and civil rights groups alike.
According to CNET, the bill would allow the White House to declare cybersecurity emergencies. It also allows the government to choose which internet companies they deem “critical.” These companies would then be subject to regulations surrounding hiring employees, information that would need to be disclosed and when the government could take over their network.
What do you think of this bill? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Facebook to Update Privacy Practices in Response to Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Facebook has been working with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to come up with solutions to concerns that the office has. The updates will take up to 12 months to implement and involve three types of adjustments.
New Notifications
Facebook will work to encourage users to review their privacy settings. The goal is to help members make sure that they’re aware of the default settings and to change the settings to reflect their own preferences.
Additions to Facebook’s Privacy Policy
Facebook’s Privacy Policy will be updated to provide descriptions of a number of privacy practices. Included will be reasons for date of birth data collection, account memorialization for deceased users, the difference between deactivation and deletion and how Facebook’s advertising programs work.
These updates will be subject to a notice and comment period by Facebook members.
Technical changes for third-party data collection
A new permissions model will require third-party applications to inform users about which types of information they want to access. It will also require third parties to get consent before data is shared. Users will have to approve access to their friends’ information. However, friend data would still be protected by their individual privacy settings.
What do you think of Facebook’s plans for privacy updates? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Bing Offers Up Image Optimization Tips
Over on the Bing blog, Todd Schwartz is offering up some tips on optimizing your photos and graphics for image search. Schwartz says that Bing’s top image developer recommends the following:
- Name image files appropriately – For improved relevance, make sure that the file name describes the image appropriately.
- Alternative image text (alt text) matters – For increased optimization, make sure photos are properly described with alternative text tags, and ensure that test within any images is also
- Watch frame breaking – Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search. Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.
Wondering how important image search is? Schwartz addressed that very question as a panelist at the Image Search session at SES San Jose a few weeks back. He shared image search data from comScore for June 2009. Over 60 million searches produced more than 1 billion image searches. So yeah, I’d say that image search is pretty darn important.
What say you? Leave your thoughts on image search in the comments below.
Google Logo Remembers Michael Jackson’s Birthday
Google’s August 29th logo notes Michael Jackson’s birthday.
Google has commemorated birthdays of many famous people and events, such as Luciano Pavarotti, Lego, and Dr. Seuss.
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Yahoo Adds Products, Businesses, Events, Discussions & News To SearchMonkey
The Yahoo Search Blog announced the expansion of the SearchMonkey platform to not only include richer search results for categories such as Video, Documents, and Games but now also in the categories of Products, Local Businesses, Event, Discussions, or News. Here are some example search results that show off some of these features:
We [...]
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10 SEO Tips For Maximizing Facebook Visibility
No discussion of social media’s effect on organic search results is complete without considering Facebook’s well-laid play for “search” domination, in a closed-loop-members-only end run around Google’s public algorithmic crawl.
With 250 million users, the recent purchase of friendFeed and newly offered ability to search at macro and/or granular users’ network levels, Facebook’s internal community-search platform [...]
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Google Expanding Access To Wave Soon, First “Hands-On” Impressions
At the end of next month, September 30, Google will expand the current “developer preview” of Google Wave to roughly 100,000 consumer users. According to Google, “included in this group of early testers will be some of the businesses using Google Apps.” In anticipation of this wider release, Danny and I got some time with Lars Rasmussen [...]
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Search In Pictures: Google Holy Water, Yahoo Frisbees & Celebrating Onam
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Google Holy Water:
Yahoo Frisbees:
What’s behind the wall?
Google SMS Search in Nigeria:
Yahoo Celebrates Onam:
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