There was something innocent and pure about Twitter's total lack of income. But don't worry, the microblogging startup's first advertisements are sufficiently adorable. Twitter has taken to selling off the "concepts" it defines under user profiles. If the ads are a bit twee, well, Twitter's take probably is, too. But the company is determined its ads must be innovative, and revolution is never free.
Today is the day I reached the 1,000 followers milestone on Twitter — I’m not sure how
important this is, but it did give me a small thrill (very
small.) If you want to jump on the bandwagon, I am mariofantoni on Twitter. For a list of Twitter tips for complete beginners check Top 10 Twitter Tips for Beginners and Top 7 Mistakes New Twitter Users Make. Find topics on Twitter from the local search page. Search with a hash mark (e.g., #Independence+Day) to limit your search to topics. Happy Tweeting!
Here is a list of my favorite 10 iPhone apps. These are all applications that relate to my life so I’m sure
they will be of use to you. Enjoy!
1. TwitterFon
TwitterFon is my iPhone twitter app of choice. One plus side is that it is free! When using Twitter from my phone I want to easily be able to tweet,
@reply and retweet and TwitterFon allows that! It does a lot more than
just that allowing for Twitter search, location search, profile
viewing, tweet url’s (that are automatically shortened) and post photos. TwitterFon has an excellent clean look and is in my opinion a perfect Twitter application.
2. Ego
Since I launched OfferMaxima.com in 2003 I have been an absolute statistics nut. Ego costs $1.99 and allows you to track your Twitter, Feedburner,
Google Analytics, SquareSpace and Mint accounts. It does all this
while looking stunning with a MAC dashboard look about it. Ego is a classic example of what, in my opinion, makes a great iPhone
app -- it does one thing but it does it really very well.
3. Instapaper
Instapaper is a bookmarking service for your iPhone, allowing you to save web pages for later to read offline. I use the free version but from what I see the paid versions extras really aren’t options I would need.
4. Evernote
Evernote gives you all the major tools of its desktop and web software in its
iPhone app—add text, snap a phone cam shot, record a memo, or upload a
photo, and it's all available for organizing, tagging, or searching
later. New in this interface is a straight-forward voice recorder. Did I mention it is free?
5. NetNewsWire
NetNewsWire syncs with NetNewsWire (Mac) or FeedDemon
(Windows), meaning you won't read the
same items twice. There's a "Clippings" feature for setting items aside
for later (or when you'll be offline) that also syncs to your desktop,
and the interface is straightforward — and that's about it. NetNewsWire is free.
6. AroundMe
If you ever find yourself in an unknown location AroundMe will let you quickly find out information about your surroundings. It uses your GPS signal to work out where you are and finds the nearest
amenities around you. You can choose from a number of options including
banks, bars, coffee shops, gas stations, hotels, etc. Results can
then be put onto Google maps with directions or their contact info can
be displayed. You can even email the location to inform others of where
you are headed. Best of all, it is free!
7. Shazam
Shazam is a magic little app that works out the name of the track
that you point it towards. After hearing about 10 secs of music it will
then present you with the artist and title. The option is then there to
buy the track among other things. All I know is that not only is Shazam free but it’s a very cool app to have on your phone!
8. Air Sharing
Air sharing allows you to connect your iPhone to your computer via WI-FI or your computer's browser, from here you can drag files over to
your phone and use it as a storage device. It also
allows you to view a huge array of files from your phone. It costs $2.99.
9. Flashlight
If you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a full
bladder and had to go on an intrepid journey through the blackness of
the night because of your sleeping
partner or if you are 40 plus and have trouble reading restaurant menus at those romantic dinners Flashlight can help
you. Basically, it displays a very bright color onto
your iPhone’s screen lighting up the path ahead.
10. Ocarina
The iPhone has many cool apps but Ocarina is especially
new age. It has "holes" that you cover with your fingers, as you would
the holes on a flute. Then you blow into the microphone hole at the
bottom of the iPhone, and presto: the haunting, expressive, beautiful
sound of a wind instrument comes from the iPhone speaker. Different
combinations of fingers on those four "holes" produce the different
notes of the scale. But wait, there is more! If you tap the little globe at the bottom of the screen, the screen
changes to a map of the world--and you start hearing the Ocarina
performance of one person, in one city (indicated by animated sound
waves on the map), who's playing the thing right now. It's a amazing to know that you're listening to someone
else playing Ocarina, in real time, somewhere else on the
planet. (And then you realize that someone, somewhere might be
listening to you!) It creates a world wide musical experience.
Now it’s your turn…I would love to see your iPhone app suggestions. What application do you use the most on your iPhone? What app would you just not be able to live without? Share your thoughts with everyone in the comments below.
Today on my way to work I saw that somebody had piled some garbage cans in a very artistic way, a la Andy Goldsworthy.
It made me stop my car and take the picture on the left. Drunk
teenagers? An angry neighbor? Doesn't matter - it interrupted my
momentum to get to the office and attracted my attention. Marketers
can't do the same with outdoors, so there is a lesson to be learnt.
Google is secretive. This started as a deliberate marketing mystique, but endures today more as a really annoying company habit. Google folks don't understand why the rest of us have a problem with this, but then Google folks aren't like you and me. The result of this secrecy and Google's "almighty algorithm" mentality is that the company makes changes -- and mistakes -- without informing its customers or even doing all that much to correct the problems. It's all just beta code, after all. But the business part is real, as is the money that some people have lost because of Google's poor communication skills combined, frankly, with poor follow-through.
First there is click fraud. Google makes its money when people click on Google ads, but some of those clicks are fraudulent -- are not honestly intended to gain information or to buy products. Click fraud generally comes in two varieties that I'll call "buy" and "sell." An example of buy-side click fraud would be my little sister religiously clicking on every Google ad on this page (What? We have no Google ads?) in the mistaken belief that doing so would make me some money. It is mass clicking by a single person without an intention to actually buy or even to gain information. Sell-side click fraud would be one advertiser clicking on the ads of a competitor with the intention of costing that competitor money without increasing their sales. Both types of click fraud ought to be detectable, and in fact, Google says it already detects the 10 percent or so of clicks that are fraudulent (Business 2.0 magazine says it is more like 30 percent), and adjusts the bill before the advertiser even knows what is happening.
But not all click fraud is detected automatically. It is one thing to notice the same IP address being used to click 30 ads in three seconds (that is obviously fraud), but quite another if the clicks are spread out or come from what appear to be a variety of users. There, too, Google pledges to make things right, though it may take some time -- too much time, I think.
I was a victim of click fraud, which in this case is simply defined as my Google AdWords bill climbing from $250 one month to $4,000 the next with no change in the campaign or increase in sales. Mario contacted Google, which, after an "investigation," decided that I was, indeed, a victim of click fraud. Good for Google! But that was seven weeks ago and I ammy still waiting my credit card to be reimbursed for $3,750. Google has yet to explain why it is taking so long for me to get my money back. For that matter, Google has yet to actually say that I will GET my money back. They are still "investigating," which could mean anything because the company will not explain what it means.
It all comes down to the AdWords algorithm and its intent, which isn't to help customers, but to simply maximize profit for Google.
Like most people in business, I use Google AdWords. A month or so
ago I started to see that Google was asking me to pay more and more
money for my keywords every month. Initially I was paying a dollar to
be on the first position, however, on the following week, I was on the
second position. Soon after I discovered I had to pay almost five
dollars to be at the top. Surprised, I started to test the system
deeply. Then I realized that no matter what I did my position would be
changing all the time.
Next, I gathered a lot of information and gave it to Dr. Genichi Taguchi, the creator of the statistical method named after him. After some days this Japanese engineer reached an astonishing verdict: according to him, Google was using the famous theory of games of John Forbes Nash Jr., the recipient of the Noble Prize in Economics in 1994. This theory refers to the search of an "equilibrium point". If a gambling house gives a lot of money to its players, it will end up losing lots of it. If, on the other hand, does not give away enough, people will stop betting money. Nash equation would help meeting the famous equilibrium point.
In order to know more, I decided to talk to a specialist in game theory in Florida, and presented the same numbers to him not explaining what the thing was about. After three days, the specialist gave me his answer: "This is a casino!"
Chance or coincidence? In any case, I came to the conclusion that the system works according to a basic rule: It maximizes Google profits according to a method that is the same one used by the lotteries and gambling places.
Suddenly I remembered Google's motto: "Don't do evil". Oh, C'mon….what kind of evil can a search engine do?
Elinor Mills, a reporter with the tech news service CNET, ran a search on Google CEO Eric Schmidt and published the results: Schmidt lived with his wife in Atherton, California, is worth about $1.5 billion, had dumped about $140 million in Google shares last year, is an amateur pilot, and had been to the Burning Man festival. Google threw a fit, claimed that the information was a security threat, and announced it was blacklisting CNET's reporters for a year. (The company eventually backed down.) It was a peculiar response, especially given that the information Mills published was far less intimate than the details easily found online on every one of us. But then, this is something of a pattern with Google: When it comes to information, it knows what's best.
From the start, Google's informal motto has been "Don't Be Evil" . But make no mistake. Faced with doing the right thing or doing what is in its best interests, Google has almost always chosen expediency. In 2002, it removed links to an anti-Scientology site after the Church of Scientology claimed copyright infringement. Scores of website operators have complained that Google pulls ads if it discovers words on a page that it apparently has flagged, although it will not say what those words are. In September of 2006, Google handed over the records of some users of its social-networking service, Orkut, to the Brazilian government, which was investigating alleged racist, homophobic, and pornographic content.
Google's stated mission may be to provide "unbiased, accurate, and free access to information," but that didn't stop it from censoring its Chinese search engine to gain access to a lucrative market (prompting Bill Gates to crack that perhaps the motto should be "Do Less Evil"). Now that the company is publicly traded, it has a legal responsibility to its shareholders and bottom line that overrides any higher calling.
You see, every search engine gathers information about its users — primarily by sending us "cookies," or text files that track our online movements. Most cookies expire within a few months or years. Google's, though, don't expire until 2038. Until then, when you use the company's search engine or visit any of myriad affiliated sites, it will record what you search for and when, which links you click on, which ads you access.
And Google knows far more than that. If you are a Gmail user, Google stashes copies of every email you send and receive. If you use any of its other products — Google Maps, Froogle, Google Book Search, Google Earth, Google Scholar, Google Talk, Google Images, Google Video, and Google News — it will keep track of which directions you seek, which products you shop for, which phrases you research in a book, which satellite photos and news stories you view, and on and on.
So the question is not whether Google will always do the right thing — it hasn't, and it won't. Google has become the greatest threat to privacy ever known, a vast informational honey pot that attracts hackers, crackers, online thieves, and - worst of all - unscrupulous sales reps and head hunters.
If companies like Jigsaw are evil, Google is the mother of all.
I wrote about Jigsaw, the contact information marketplace, on my May 05 post. I said that Jigsaw is evil and that "every
Jigsaw employee and investor has dirty hands and they should be ashamed
of themselves". Well, this week it got even worse. Jigsaw announced the so-called "Open Data Initiative" and declared June 4th, 2008 "Data Independence Day". Jigsaw's "Founding Fathers" Garth Moulton and Jim Fowler even recorded a clip dressed in 1776 fashion. Oh my gosh, that's so tacky! Anyhow, better get ready - your business information is now in the hands of millions of sales people ready to sell you anything from Viagra to condos in Jamaica. As Scott McNealy pithily said a while ago about the loss of privacy in the internet era, "Just get used to it".
Somebody did a research and found that there are 965 domains that simply scrap information from Wikipedia and serve it up with ads (usually Google AdSense).
So people get their information from Answers.com or whatever and don’t realize that their source is Wikipedia, a collection of facts, truths, half-truths, quarter-truths, myths and outright falsehoods written by complete amateurs. Of course those people, we are told, are idiots to believe everything that Wikipedia serves them - but they don’t know that what they’re reading comes from Wikipedia.
Pathetic.
Jigsaw is a marketplace for contact information,
and it is very efficient. It boasts detailed personal contact
information for 8 million people, and 25,000 new people are added
every day. If you want the name, title, email address, direct phone
line and/or address of any executive of any company, there is a very
good chance Jigsaw will already have it in its database and will sell
it to you. And if you are a sales guy and have no ethical concerns
about where you get your contact information, you probably already know
all about Jigsaw.
Unlike competitors like Hoovers and InfoUSA, which gather company information by semi-legitimate means such as scouring SEC filings, cold calling companies and asking for information, and reviewing other public documents, Jigsaw simply pays people to upload other people’s contact information. Users are paid $1 for every contact they upload, and some users have uploaded information on tens of thousands of people. Jigsaw is also self correcting, and incentivizes people to also correct bad contact information.
That’s right, the next time you hand out a business card to someone you may be handing it out to the entire world.
Here’s how it works: Sign up and start downloading contact information. This includes name, title, company, address, email and direct phone line.
Let's see...am I there? Of course, thanks to "Osiris" (a Maven user, with 483 contacts entered):
But wait, it gets much worse.
Anyone can find out if Jigsaw has their contact information via a link on the home page, but amending or trying to delete that information simply puts a flag on the data with the changes noted - but the original information also remains.There appears to be no way to remove your own contact information from Jigsaw once someone has entered it into their database. There is no method that I was able to find on the website to do this (including in the privacy policy), and an email to the company asking about this went unanswered (it's been ten business days now).
Jigsaw has a carefully worded privacy policy to deal with the fact that they are the antithesis of privacy. They say “This privacy policy covers how, when and why we collect, use and share information about our users…This policy does not apply to our collection and use of data about companies and contacts contained in our database system.”
Is Jigsaw legal? Maybe in the U.S., although I’d love to see a class action case brought against them. Is it ethical? Absolutely not. Every Jigsaw employee and investor has dirty hands and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Like Plaxo, Jigsaw makes money while pushing costs to other people. In Plaxo’s case, its spam. In Jigsaw’s case, its making private contact information public. The problem here is that Jigsaw’s actions aren’t easily found out by people getting constant cold calls and emails - it’s very unlikely they’ll know that these people got this contact information at Jigsaw in the first place.
If they wanted to do this right, they’d set up a marketplace where individuals could choose to sell (or give away) their contact information. The owner of the data could set the price, and Jigsaw could take a cut. Would this model work? Perhaps not, but that just proves my point. The only reason Jigsaw does work is because they don’t have to bear the costs that they push to third parties - all of the people who are in their database.
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