I compiled another quick list of links this week, but you might want to read them fast, because as Kid Mercury noted almost a week ago, On April 11, The Internet Gets Destroyed (No longer available)
OK, it might not be demolished, but it may just be broken in many places after Microsoft issues a new patch that treats some HTML tags involving embedded objects differently, instead of paying licensing fees for the technology.
Search Engines
Google Buys Search Algorithm Invented by Israeli Student
Ori Alon (or Allon), an Israeli student, who has been studying in at the University of New South Wales in Australia, appears to now be working in Google’s Mountain View offices. After a press release in September of last year, it appears that Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google were all seeking this software, which finds links to related resources, based upon text found on a page from a query on a specific subject.
Google To Open A Second Research Center In Israel
This report is based upon a list of job openings for an office in Tel Aviv, for the following positions:
- Engineering Center Director
- Vertical Head Multi-Sector
- Vertical Relationship Manager, Multi-Sector
- Vertical Account Manager, Multi-Sector
- Maximizer Coordinator (Google Copywriter)
- Sales Coordinator
The first Google office in Israel is located in the northern city of Haifa
A Privacy Analysis of the Six Proposals for San Francisco Municipal Broadband
By now, Google has been awarded the contract to work with Earthlink in providing wireless access in San Francisco. But this analysis of the folks vying to provide the service is worth reading.
The Spyware – Click-Fraud Connection — and Yahoo’s Role Revisited
Ben Edelman has had a hand in some of the most interesting research involving search engines and spyware over the past few years, on topics such as censorship in China, Saudi Arabia, France, and Germany, and more recently on spyware issues. If you pay for ads on a search engine, this is an article that you should check out.
Interviews
A Frank Interview with Gary Flake
Some nice discussion here. Gary Flake answered a good number of questions about how MSN works, and what he likes and dislikes about the search service. I’d like to see part two.
Web Directories – Interview with Greg Hartnett
Some thoughtful questions and answers with the owner of the Best of the Web directory.
Lowdown with Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld
In the only chance, I’ve had to talk with him, I got to spend about three minutes with Brett Tabke discussing PDAs in the lobby of the New York Hilton a couple of years back. He has a lot more to say in this interview with Lee Odden.
Analytics and conversions
The $10,000.00 experiment with PPC Part 1
Shoemoney entertains and educates with this post. I’m looking forward to part two.
Conversion: Make Your Links Work Harder
Dan Thies focuses on something simple that might have a large impact, on this post. I hope he keeps following this approach.
Radio Advertising And The Internet – What Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh Won’t Tell You But Blaine Parker Will
There are good ways and bad ways to tie together radio and internet advertising. We get to see both with this post.
The tail wags the dog…
Some reporting tools make suggestions on how to improve your pages. As Howard Kaplan notes here, reporting is easy, but the analysis is hard. You shouldn’t let your reporting tools also provide your analysis for you.
SocialNets & The Power of The URL
Robert Young looks at the growth of consumer control over URLs, and what it means to businesses, as well as the role of AdSense in powering this consumer-created media.
Burpee Leverages Customer WOM via RSS
A nice case study of the use of RSS and customer reviews by a 130-year-old company.
Assorted links
Wikipedia and Link Spammers – A “How-to†Guide (dead link)
Peter T Davis provides a tongue-in-cheek look at how to get links to your pages from Wikipedia.
Visual Retrieval Experiment
If you have 15 – 20 minutes and would like to participate in Mauro Cherubini’s experiment on Visual Information Retrieval for his thesis work, I’m sure that he would be appreciative. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m planning on doing so in the morning.
Internet Archive Sued for Copyright Infringement
Is the Internet Archive legal, or is it copyright infringement? I’m having a difficult time understanding the legal argument being made by the plaintiff’s lawyer in this case. I wonder if the complaint that was filed will make it any clearer.
Beginner’s guide to podcasts and podcasting (plus: how to create a basic podcast of your own)
An excellent step-by-step guide, which covers many of the small technical details on how to make a podcast.
On Volunteering
Inspirational post that gives ten very good reasons to volunteer to help others.
Elasticity for Entrepreneurs
On the importance of expertise, inelastic goods, and niches. Thought-provoking.
Thanks Bill, you’ve become my human edited RSS aggregator.
Hmmm, I wonder if there is a market in that?
Thanks, Loren.
I’m liking this type of weekly roundup enough to make it a regular feature.
Since I’m bookmarking a number of posts during the week, spending some time going back over them on the weekend seems to make sense. Writing about them seems to make even more sense.
The question is: how do you find all these posts?
I second the vote to make this a regular feature. You’ve moved to the top of my RSS – always very insightful, especially with posts like these.
I have about 500 or so feeds that I try to follow over the course of a week, plus Technorati, and some other Web 2.0 aggregation services. Most of the blogs in my blogroll are amongst those feeds.
Thanks, Marcus. I’m finding that I’m learning a lot by revisiting posts, and trying to write something about them. I’ll be experimenting with formats and titles, but I will be adding this type of weekly roundup as a regular feature here. Appreciate the vote of approval.
Thanks for the mention Bill. Hmm, human edited RSS aggregator, not a bad idea at all!
You’re welcome, Peter. Enjoyed the article very much. It’s good to get that type of first hand perspective. Thanks for sharing it with us.
You’re welcome, Dan.
I have to adopt your advice in that post here. 🙂
I’m looking forward to more of those from you. Thanks.
Thanks for the mention, Bill. Yes, I will be maintaining the “1 simple thing a day” concept. I have a list of over 300 things at this point, so if I am not inspired on a given day, all I gotta do is grab one off the stack. 😀
Hi Rae,
Thanks. I usually bookmark a fair amount of posts and articles every week, so going through them again over the weekend is a second chance to put them in perspective. Makes sense to do this weekly.
And it’s a nice break from writing about patents (which I seem to be doing more and more of).
Wow, nice set of links – had to take a lot of time to put together. Maybe you should make this a weekly gig 😉
You seem like a cool link supercomputer finder. Thanks for the info.
Frank
Thank you, Frank.