Posts tagged Free
Google Fined in France Because Google Maps is Free
Feb 2nd
A Paris court has ordered Google France and parent company Google Inc. to pay €500,000 ($660,000) in damages, after a two year court battle with French mapping company Bottin Cartographes over their unfair competition complaint.
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Ajax Union SEO Company Presents Free Social Media Webinar for Professionals … – PR.com (press release)
Feb 2nd
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Ajax Union SEO Company Presents Free Social Media Webinar for Professionals …
PR.com (press release) Ajax Union, an SEO company in Brooklyn, NY, is offering a free upcoming webinar with a focus on Twitter. Brooklyn, NY, February 02, 2012 –(PR.com)– Brooklyn-based internet marketing agency Ajax Union will be hosting its latest social media webinar on … |
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French Court Fines Google $660,000 Because Google Maps Is Free
Feb 1st
Google faces a $660,000 fine after a French court ruling that the company is abusing its dominant position in mapping by making Google Maps free. According to The Economic Times, the French commercial court “upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google…
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SEO Amplified Introduces Risk Free, Pay For Ranking Local SEO Services – Daily Markets
Jan 26th
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SEO Amplified Introduces Risk Free, Pay For Ranking Local SEO Services
Daily Markets Search engine optimization (SEO) is perhaps the most important factor for small businesses marketing themselves on the Web today. Unfortunately, according to SEO Amplified, trying to find quality, affordable help with local SEO has also been one of the … |
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SEO Amplified Introduces Risk Free, Pay for Ranking Local SEO Services – PR Web (press release)
Jan 26th
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SEO Amplified Introduces Risk Free, Pay for Ranking Local SEO Services
PR Web (press release) Search engine optimization (SEO) is perhaps the most important factor for small businesses marketing themselves on the Web today. However, according to SEO Amplified, trying to find quality, affordable help with small business SEO has also been one of … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
How Will Free Wikipedia Access Change Africa and the Middle East?
Jan 25th
Many of us take cheap high-speed Internet access for granted. I think nothing of downloading an MP3 album from Amazon MP3 while streaming a movie from Netflix on the Roku and browsing the Web on a powerful computer. That’s not a luxury that’s available to everyone, and in some parts of the world data charges prove prohibitive for going online for information.
To help counter that, the Wikimedia Foundation and Orange have come up with a plan for free Wikipedia access. Overall, the deal looks like a win for users, but it does raise a couple of questions as well. How is Wikipedia access going to change Africa and the Middle East?
Sponsor
Yesterday, Wikimedia and Orange announced a deal to provide more than 70 million people with mobile access to Wikipedia at no cost. Through the deal, subscribers in remote and urban areas of Africa and the Middle East (AMEA) will get to use Wikipedia through mobile phones with no data charge.
Backstory
Orange is the fifth-largest telecom operator in the world, and it services 20 countries in AMEA. This includes Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia and Uganda.
Jay Walsh, the Wikimedia Foundation’s head of communications, said that the organization has been in conversations "for quite a while to try to build efforts around mobile strategy" where "one of the key planks is to bring partners who are keen to provide Wikipedia for free without any data charges."
According to Walsh, Wikipedia has seen a "dramatic increase in people connecting from mobile devices" but as more and more people come online in AMEA cost of data access has been a major impediment. Since we’re talking Wikipedia here, let’s [look at just one country (Senegal)] served by Orange according to Wikipedia. Orange is one of three telecom providers. The country has about 278,000 landlines for nearly 12 million people, but nearly 3.5 million mobile subscribers. Internet penetration is less than one percent according to Wikipedia. So this demonstrates a huge potential market.
Naturally, Orange isn’t the only company operating in AMEA, so providing Wikipedia access to customers isn’t just a goodwill gesture – it gives the company an added feature to entice customers to sign up for subscriptions with it instead of, say, Tigo in Senegal. If Wikipedia access proves popular, though, expect the Wikimedia Foundation to work with other carriers as well.
Read-Only
Part of the point of Wikipedia is that it’s not read-only. We not only have access to a huge body of knowledge, we have the ability to edit or add to it. At least at first, the audience that Orange brings to the table is going to be in read-only mode.
Walsh says that initially, it will be largely read-only. Most customers in the regions served by the free data programs are not going to be iPhones or Android phones. They’ll be phones that don’t readily lend themselves to editing Wikipedia. However, Walsh did say that Wikimedia is "looking at what things are necessary to make editing much more friendly on the phone."
When editing does become easier, it will likely require Wikipedia to add new languages and new contributors will beef up entries in existing languages. If you look at Sengal, the Wolof-speaking population is about 43% of the country. Currently Wikipedia has only about 1,000 entries in Wolof (compared to more than 100,000 in English).
Wikipedia Policies
When Orange’s customers do have access to edit Wikipedia, another question comes to the fore. How are Wikipedia’s policies going to change, if at all, to accommodate an influx of users who want to contribute but may not be able to cite works according to Wikipedia’s current standards.
Users in some parts of Africa or the Middle East may want to add information that’s been passed down through oral tradition or might have other issues in being cited according to current Wikipedia standards. Walsh says that citation and other problems that might be encountered for AMEA users are "something that’s actively being discussed."
At the same time, Walsh says that "people come to Wikipedia and edit it… because of those policies. They don’t necessarily want to radically transform it."
Wikipedia Only
Assuming the program takes off, this also gives Wikipedia a sort of monopoly in areas where Orange gives free access. It’s easy for users in North America (for instance) to hit Google and look up any topic, where Wikipedia is merely one of many sources of information. In this instance, Wikipedia may be the only source of information.
Customers will only be able to access content on Wikipedia itself, so any cited works and references linked from Wikipedia will effectively be off-limits to users who can’t afford to pay data rates. Walsh says that users will be given fair warning before leaving the site, though. "We warn the user with a banner at the top of page when they click a link that would incur data charges. The user has to accept the charges to continue to the resource."
It also raises the question of using Wikipedia to spread disinformation. One of the areas where Orange is rolling out the program is Egypt. It’s interesting to imagine how the Egyptian government might have used Wikipedia during the revolution, or how other countries might try to influence people within AMEA.
Or consider how China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs might want to influence Wikipedia entries related to Senegal. Check the China and Senegal entry on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site and compare with the Al Jazeera report on how the Chinese are changing Senegal.
Having a single source of information means that it’s much easier for organized attempts to influence what’s visible, and the slant of coverage. This is not a criticism of Wikipedia – but over-reliance on any single source of information is not an altogether good thing. It just happens that Wikipedia stands to become the single source of information here.
Wait and See
Access to Orange customers in AMEA will be rolled out through 2012. How it impacts users in AMEA, and how they impact Wikipedia, will be interesting. Wikipedia has already had a significant impact on much of the world with cheap Internet access. The impact in countries that are just coming online is likely to be substantial.
Though the deal does raise a few questions, it’s worth noting that this does seem largely positive for people getting access to Wikipedia. Access to more information is almost always a win. Free access to a comprehensive source like Wikipedia seems likely to be very beneficial.
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Market Target Offers Free WordPress Websites for SEO Customers – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Jan 23rd
 PR Web |
Market Target Offers Free WordPress Websites for SEO Customers
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) SEO in San Diego leader Market Target announced today they are offering free websites for all new SEO Customers. Market Target is a leading provider of San Diego SEM and SEO Training San Diego. The offer is driven in part by the large demand for … Market Target Welcomes Testmasters Inc as New Customer |
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Get Free SEO Software: Link-Assistant.Com Sponsors Competition in iHubbub’s … – PR Web (press release)
Jan 22nd
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Get Free SEO Software: Link-Assistant.Com Sponsors Competition in iHubbub's …
PR Web (press release) The SEO competition is currently underway and ends January, 30th. The first prize is one SEO PowerSuite Enterprise license worth €599, the second is SEO PowerSuite Professional (€249 value). We are pleased to be able to offer this great SEO prize to … |
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Get Free SEO Software: Link-Assistant.Com Sponsors Competition in iHubbub’s … – DigitalJournal.com (press release)
Jan 22nd
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Get Free SEO Software: Link-Assistant.Com Sponsors Competition in iHubbub's …
DigitalJournal.com (press release) SEO can be mastered, but at large it is SEO software that can give answers to the questions of why websites lag behind in organic search, and what exactly should be done to improve online presence. That is the reason why Paula has encouraged iHubbub … |
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Oracle Digital Extend Free Website Offer Due To Popular Demand – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Jan 21st
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Oracle Digital Extend Free Website Offer Due To Popular Demand
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) Due to increased demand, Perth SEO Company Oracle Digital have extended their free WordPress website offer for several more weeks. SEO Perth Company Oracle Digital have today announced they have extended their free website offer for new customers who … |
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