So Yahoo! has released Buzz to the public today. At first I was skeptical about yet another news article ranking site. Digg in my opinion does a great job of it, so why reinvent the wheel. But after reading Rafe Needleman’s post on Webware, I’m definitely intrigued. According to Webware, Buzz let’s you also submit the story to Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other sites. So that’s definitely intriguing. It’d be need to see if Buzz is actually something worthwile. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
It’s tempting to discount Buzz as just another content voting site, but that misses the point. Publishers (like Webware publisher CNET) cannot afford to ignore Buzz, since popular stories on the service can get placement on the Yahoo page, and that could drive large amounts of traffic back. It’s a big carrot. Competition for Buzz votes is going to be strong.
So Gizmodo just posted this picture on their site. I think it’s a neat photo showing where all these great Olympic pictures come from. The guys over at Gizmodo estimate that there’s about $250,000 worth of equipment here and closer to $22 million in equipment at the Olympics. Impressive to say the least.
I love how John McCain’s campaign ads bash Barak Obama for being a celebrity and not having enough experience. Both of these might be right or they might be wrong. I’ll keep that opinion to myself for now. But when the Democratic National Committee is able to point out factual data in a parody about McCain, that should make it clear to Americans who McCain really is. He’s not the straight talker he wants us to think. There have been enough documentation proving that wrong, but his energy policy is very alarming and typically Republican. Watch the video and come to your own conclusions. In the end both Obama and McCain are politicians and they do that very well.
So this was at funny or die. It’s a great spoof of one of the most idiotic campaign ads I’ve ever seen. I’m starting to wonder if McCain is actually more limited than George W. How can he compare Obama to the likes of Spears and Hilton. There is no comparison and just makes McCain look like an extreme idiot. Do we really want someone that has no clue what he’s doing as president? I sure don’t. McCain should throw in the towel and retire to Arizona.
Just read this. Apparently writing compelling content, like newspaper articles, is a great way to rank high in Google. The LA Times is doing this and they are ranking high. I do have to admit the last few articles that I’ve read via Google have been from the LATimes.com site. Very interesting. Some good insight.
LA Times sees SEO traffic increase
Friday, 08 Aug 2008 12:23
Search engine optimization (SEO) is responsible for a rise in traffic to the LA Times online, it claims.
The revelation was made in a memo from the executive editor, published through one of the newspaper’s blogs.
It explains the number of visitors and page views has climbed considerably during July, overtaking previous records.
The publication has seen 66 per cent growth compared to a year ago, the memo continues.
It states there are technological reasons for its increasing popularity.
“We’re using technology and the web at large to spread our journalism far and wide. Latimes.com keeps getting better at SEO … which means our stories are ranking higher in Google and other search engines,” the editor adds.
Recently, search giant Google explained in its AdSense blog that adding “original and compelling content” regularly to a website can help its algorithm rank the pages highly.
Furthermore, it continued, this can also help attract inbound links, which also boost a website’s position in the search results.
Just got wind of Google’s new online encyclopedia Knol. It’s a really neat concept that seems to mix Google Docs with a more social network, how to type network. It’s a neat concept. And best part there is no restriction on advertising your business on it like there is on Wikipedia.
Though, with this new creation, many critics are worried that Google has gone too far. The Christian Science Monitor has written an article (excerpt below) about Google’s distraction from it’s main mission as a search company.
On the Google scale of projects, the search giant’s newly launched online encyclopedia Knol ranks as relatively minor. But for some, it’s a stretch – not technologically, but ethically.
Google has over the years expanded its Web presence beyond the familiar search box. With each foray into content, it raises concerns about conflict of interest with its original function as unbiased search engine – concerns that Google search would be disposed to point to Google content first.
“This is a step too far,” says Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land. “Google’s job started out being a service that points people to other information, and that remains their primary job – not to be providing the information themselves.”
The company now controls the leading online video site YouTube, owns a major blogging platform, and has advertising inventory on millions of external pages thanks to AdSense and DoubleClick.
Like most search engines, Google keeps secret the algorithms that rank search results, meaning that users are left to trust the company not to favor its own burgeoning content over others.
“I would prefer that a search engine keep church and state separate,” says Jay Bhatti, co-founder of Spock.com, a people search engine. “You can’t choose to be a content creator as well as a content aggregator that impartially sends people to data sources. It’s very tough.”
Google has moved into some areas of content because few other companies can undertake projects of such scale, such as digitizing the world’s books. Other times, it dabbles in publishing mainly to improve its search functionality.
In the case of Knol, says Mr. Sullivan, the project overlaps needlessly with existing online encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, Citizendium, and Squidoo.
“They really didn’t need to do Knol,” says Sullivan. “What you really want sometimes is for Google to say no to itself.”
Honestly, I agree there is reason to be a bit concerned. After all Google is the go to search engine for not only Web surfers but Web and SEO developers around the World. I do agree that there might be a conflict, but not as big of one since Google is allowing everyone to take part in it and pretty much do what they please with it (it does have some restrictions).
Though the concern is a valid one, I figure it’s just one more place to promote my business online and drive more business my way. I think that instead of worrying about losing business, people should concentrate on how to make this new system/product work for them.
In Jonathan Alter’s latest Newsweek column he talks about the rise of the bloggermedia and how the standards of traditional media have been tossed out the window. Now this is true in some respect. There are a lot of bloggers out there that spread rumors that aren’t true.
Everything about the Web is double-edged. It’s hard to believe, but YouTube wasn’t even around in 2004. Now it or other streamed video is a godsend for anyone who wants to follow politics closely. But YouTube is also a pixilated guillotine for any public figures inclined to show a little humanity that is, fallibility or a penchant for inconvenient truth-telling when they step out of their house. Colin Powell told me recently that he’s even had to put up with picture takers in the men’s room.
My step-brother was a target of such a blogger. This blogger blamed my step-brother for the downfall of Bear Sterns. None of his accusations were true and were quickly proven wrong. As it turns out he felt burned because my step-brother “didn’t think he had the stuff” or something like that.
This is a prime example of the difference between the bloggermedia and the “real” media. As the line between what’s constitutes the media blures, one of the glaring differences is that in the blogosphere there are few if any checks and balances to keep the news as truthful and honest. There is no code of ethics or anythink like that. Another good example of this would be the rumor of Obama being a Muslim. Not true but it spread through the blogosphere and even made it to mainstream media.
How can we fix this? Well it’s no easy task. One thing is for certain, bloggers need to be held accountable for what they right. This is often hard because of the anonymity that blogging can and often should have, but there needs to be some ethics installed som where some how.
Two ironies of the new age: the Netroots demand transparency from everyone except themselves. They still usually prefer to shoot from behind a rock of anonymity. That way KellyB doesn’t have to defend her (or his) unfair rap against Politico.com. Until this changes and the culture of the Web demands that people identify themselves, online political power will not extend beyond small-donor fund-raising (a hugely positive development this year). That’s because members of Congress respond only to e-mails with names and addresses from their districts.
The second irony is that people often prefer rumors to facts. They so distrust the mainstream media that they may believe, say, lies about Obama’s being a Muslim that reach their IN box from their cousin’s friend’s brother, whose nephew got it from his mother-in-law, who can’t recall where it came from in the first place, over the careful reporting of a reputable news outlet.
Now is traditional media innocent, has it been known to be bias (either way)? Yes. But there are more ways to keep journalists honest than bloggers.
It’ll be interesting to see how the bloggermedia and blogosphere take shape and it grows in the years to come.
A friend of mine in the UK, John, has a very interesting post on how to get your site into DMoz, aka the Open Directory Project. For those of you know, DMoz, is a human-edited directory that is ranked very high by Google. Getting your site in DMoz will most likely get you ranked higher in the search results of Google and other search engines that use DMoz results as part of their strategy for ranking sites. In John’s post he talks about the do’s and don’t’s to submitting to DMoz. It’s a definite read.
Submitting a site to DMoz has long been known as one of the ”things to do” when it comes to SEO. Putting it into practice however, is something that’s often more easily said than done. People who get their sites accepted have long praised the DMoz editors, while those who have been denied entry through the pearly gates curse the editors as if they’ve done the earth some sinful injustice.
For those who aren’t as obsessed with the Internet or who don’t spend their days at the computer screen typing code and geeking around on the Web, Internet TV is the new frontier. With traditional TV still going strong, Internet TV is more of the wild west with eclectic shows ranging from knitting 101 to technology-lusting shows like Tekzilla and Diggnation.
As with traditional TV many Internet shows are on networks and often Web startups trying to adventure into this wild unknown area of the Internet. Though there are many Internet TV shows not affiliated with a network, many of the top-notch ones are (IMHO). Most of these are on Revison 3. I recently came across this post in the LA Times about this startup, I’m a huge fan of their programing by the way, and I though I would share the link.
Revision3 was started in 2005 by Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, the guys behind Digg.com, the popular site where users vote on the best news stories of the day. Rose co-hosts the show “Diggnation,” a weekly rundown of the site’s top stories, which Revision3 beams out to about 200,000 viewers per 40-minute episode. He has become a model for the kind of smart celebrity the technology scene loves — people who are entertaining while the camera’s rolling, and enterprising when it isn’t.
“What’s working are these host-driven shows,” said Revision3 Chief Executive Jim Louderback. “The ones where you’ve got an engaging host with a proven ability to aggregate social networks around them online, and who are great at talking about their passions.”
Revision3 owes that approach to another pioneering enterprise of which it’s a genetic descendant. The now-defunct cable network TechTV built a loyal audience earlier in the decade and minted many of the technology world’s best-known stars. A half-dozen TechTV alumni, including Rose and Louderback, currently fill Revision3’s roster.
Though Internet TV might not be for everyone, it’s definitely a new medium that is slowly being capitalized on and is worth a peak. One suggestion, you might want to watch these shows, especially if you’re streaming them, on a faster broadband connection.
Enjoy.
Editor Note: Another great site to check out that is TWITLive.com which is part of the TWIT Network of podcasts. Though the network is mostly podcasts, audio shows, TwitLive shows the video behind the audio. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Digital Designer Forum launched last week quietly, but is slowly catching on. One of the first of its kind, DDF plans on being run by the users who use it not by admins and moderators. According to the site founder John “Eggman” O’Nolan, DDF’s policies and decisions will be democratically, via votes by the users.
“This is revolutionary,” O’Nolan said. “I’ve searched the Web, high and low, and haven’t be able to find a forum or community like this anywhere.”
O’Nolan said he’s be a member of a number of different forums in the past and a lot of them he’s liked, but when it came down to it, the decisions about the community or forum was up to a small core group of people not the the people in the community.
“I kinda consider this a social experiment,” he said. “It would be great to see this take off.”
Seth (aka. Code Hound or PhillyNewsHound) is an alumnus of the University of Delaware. He graduated with a degree in History and Journalism. Having started designing Web sites in high school (1998), Seth turned his love for creativity and design into a Web design firm called Goldstein Media LLC.
Seth prides himself on delivery quality Web design in a trustworthy, dependable and affordable fashion. He has designed sites for a variety of different companies and individuals. Check out his image gallery for examples of his work, as well as his company's Web site for more information.
SethGoldstein.net is his way of bringing his love of writing and journalism into the world of the Internet and emerging technology.
Please enjoy SethGoldstein.net and feel free to comment on the articles that are posted and the opinions that are given.
Seth is based out of the suburbs of Philadelphia and is getting married to an amazing woman in September (2008).
So Yahoo! has released Buzz to the public today. At first I was skeptical about yet another news article ranking site. Digg in my opinion does a great job of it, so why reinvent the wheel. But after reading Rafe Needleman’s post on Webware, I’m definitely intrigued. According to Webware, Buzz let’s you also submit the story to Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other sites. So that’s definitely intriguing. It’d be need to see if Buzz is actually something worthwile. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Just got wind of Google’s new online encyclopedia 
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