Posts tagged Later
Bad Merchant? Google May Drop Your Rankings Later This Year
Mar 9th
Had a bad experience purchasing from an online merchant? Google says it wants to protect searchers from that, and it may crackdown later this year with changes intended to prevent bad merchants from ranking well. The news came during the “How to Rank Better in Google & Bing” session…
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One Year Later, Instagram Triples To 100 Million Users
Feb 26th
Well, that was fast. Almost a year after announcing that it had 27 million users, Instagram has surpassed the 100-million-user miletsone, according to the company’s blog. Over the last year, Instagram has continued to refine its already polished app, adding new filters and a Web feed for viewing photos in a browser rather than on a mobile device.
The service remains well-loved among existing users even as it chases new soon to be Insta-addicts. As much as its users have worried that Facebook will meddle with its photo-sharing darling, Instagram likely has Zuck and deep Facebook News Feed integration to thank for its threefold growth in the last year.
Instagram only seems to get better with age. Last December, Instagram successfully defused a minor revolt over changes to its terms of service, suggesting that even under the wing of Facebook, the company remains nimble and autonomous.
Image courtesy of Instagram.
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Google Panda Two Years Later: 5 Questions With HubPages CEO Paul Edmondson
Feb 26th
(Editor’s Note: This is the final article in a 3-part series looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first two articles in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real…
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Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO … – Search Engine Land
Feb 25th
 Search Engine Land |
Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO …
Search Engine Land Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched two years ago, had an enormous impact on the SEO industry and online publishing as a whole. As with any Google algo change, there are winners and losers in its search results. In part one of this series … |
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Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility
Feb 25th
(Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first article in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery.)…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery – Search Engine Land
Feb 24th
 Search Engine Land |
Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery
Search Engine Land (Note: The numbers reflect Searchmetrics' “SEO Visibility” score, which doesn't reflect estimated traffic losses, but instead reflects how visible a domain is in Google's search results across millions of keywords that the company tracks.) In the image … |
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Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery
Feb 24th
(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011.) Two years ago today, Google sent shockwaves through not only the SEO industry, but also through online publishing in general when it…
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Why Obama Should Open Source His Campaign Code Now, Not Later
Jan 29th
President Obama’s technical team wants to open source the technology that is credited with helping him win the 2012 election. The Democratic Party, however, has other plans, apparently intending to keep Project Narwhal and the rest of the software secret so as to give it an advantage over cash-rich but tech-poor Republicans. In so doing, the Democratic Party demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of open source and, indeed, how organizations benefit from technology.
Open sourcing Obama’s campaign systems is actually in the Democratic Party’s self-interest.
Open Is Good For Everybody
Some Democratic politicians like to think technology won them the election. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Obama won because he ran a better campaign against a Republican candidate who looked OK on paper but was somewhat wooden in person.
Yes, part of Obama’s “better campaign” was a crack team of data scientists who built what appears to be excellent system – dubbed “Narwhal” – “that acted as an interface to a single shared data store for all of the campaign’s applications, making it possible to quickly develop new applications and to integrate existing ones into the campaign’s system.” This enabled the Obama team to divine and respond to voter preferences, among other things.
According to two of the Democratic National Committee’s technical team, who want to see the software open sourced, the current plan is to “mothball” the software to conserve resources and protect the Democrats Big Data advantage. This, they argue, would be a mistake:
Right now, only presidential campaigns have the resources to build systems of this sophistication. The data and technology infrastructure from the Obama campaign cost millions of dollars to build, and even the most well-funded senate campaigns couldn’t afford anything close to that.
But with some additional work, the data and tech infrastructure from the Obama campaign could be adapted to offer the same functionality to other progressive candidates and groups, giving them the opportunity to use these systems with their own supporters and volunteers. For smaller campaigns that would have no chance of creating these systems on their own, this could be a game-changing step forward.
The problem for the Democratic Party, however, is that even (gasp!) non-progressives could benefit from the technology if it were open sourced, which could lead to (double gasp!) Republicans winning. As The Verge reports, the Democratic Party has blocked efforts to open source the code, believing the software gives it and its candidates an advantage, and the Obama campaign is therefore keeping tight control of all campaign assets, including the software.
History Repeats Itself
For those of you who were around to witness Microsoft and other technology incumbents respond to open source’s rise, this will all seem very familiar.
Like these Democratic politicians and bureaucrats, the tech giants resisted open source, arguing that proprietary software was the only way to innovate, and gave them an advantage against competitors. They, too, thought that software was more valuable as individuallyowned property, rather than as a collective effort that brought multiple values and talents to its development.
They, too, completely missed the genesis of the very Big Data movement, firmly grounded in open-source technology that was developed through the collective efforts of Yahoo!, Google, Facebook and other new-school tech giants. Such companies understand that real competitive advantage derives from savvy business execution on services built from open-source software.
It’s not a matter of hoarding ones and zeroes.
If the Democratic Party holds Narwhal and its other software in cold storage, as TechDirt’s Mike Masnick argues, it’s effectively rendering it useless, as the software will no longer be state of the art when the next election rolls around in four years time. In addition, it’s foolish to think that the Obama campaign, however smart, employed the only intelligent engineers on the planet, and is the sole repository of wisdom about how to make the code better. It could benefit from collective efforts to improve it which, in turn, also help it recruit the best and brightest. The best developers want to work with open-source code, in an open source manner.
The days of winning by blocking access to one’s software are over. This is true in technology, and it’s true in political campaigns. For their own good the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee should open source Narwhal and other related technology. They truly have nothing to lose.
spirit of america / Shutterstock.com
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A Year Later, Google’s Block Sites Feature Remains Blocked
Jan 25th
In 2011, Google rolled out a feature allowing searchers to block web sites they don’t like from appearing in its search results, which drew great attention. That got dropped last year, when Search Plus Your World was launched last January. A year later, Google says there are no firm plans for…
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Four Months Later, Apple Still Censoring Drone Strike App
Jan 2nd
At the end of August, Apple made a disheartening decision. After NYU grad student Josh Begley submitted Drone+, an iPhone app that maps U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, the company decided that the content was too “objectionable” to be granted shelf space in their App Store.
Begley’s app didn’t contain graphic images of dismembered children or even classified information. In fact, the same data could be found, in one form or another, within other readily-available apps and on the Web. The decision made little sense, but it smacked of a sort of censorship that left many – myself included – feeling uneasy. Some called for Apple to reverse its decision. Four months later, they haven’t said a word.
The news cycle may have moved on from the Drone+ controversy, but others haven’t. In mid-November Congressman Dennis Kucinich called on Apple to unblock the app, citing the need for more transparency about how drones are used by the U.S. military.
Apple Needs To Get Out of Censorship Game
Apple’s customers pay a toll when they enter the company’s mobile ecosystem. When we purchase an iOS device, we willingly cede some freedom and control, allowing Apple to call most of the shots. In exchange, we get a highly polished, hyper-intuitive and very functional user experience. And we love it.
But sometimes Apple’s control goes too far. Every now and then, it outgrows its original intent – to maintain a superb user experience – and enters territories that can actually hamper that same experience. Even worse, it can turn a beloved technology brand into a type of censor.
This is admittedly not as scary as a government censoring a news outlet. But iOS is a very widely-adopted platform and millions of customers instinctively turn to the App Store to load their devices with content and functionality. In some countries, iPhone apps play a pivotal role in popular protests against despotic governments, who undoubtedly find the content of those apps to be “objectionable.” Why not give them the boot, too?
Apple, some will argue, is free to make decisions like this. And they are. It’s not a government after all, and consumers are free to go elsewhere or access whatever information they want via the Web browser. This is true. But what business rationale could Apple possibly have for blocking apps based on their content? As far as I can tell, there isn’t any. In fact, stuff like this makes iOS less attractive compared to alternatives like Android.
Why not just stop censoring apps? There would be no discernible degradation in the user experience and many of us would feel less creeped out.
If Apple wants to draw a line at pornography and obscenity, fine. We’ll get our porn elsewhere and the App Store will remain a spotless, kid-friendly place. But beyond obscenity and adult material, the content of apps shouldn’t factor into whether or not an app is accepted into the App Store.
Apple has not officially responded to Congressional calls to reinstate the Drone+ app. But we’ll find out if the company has had a change of heart as early as late January. That’s when Begley says he’ll resubmit the app for approval. Around the same time, he’ll submit an Android version as well.
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