Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 23rd Nov 2009 14:58 UTC
It is no secret that Microsoft is doing whatever it can to eat away at Google's immense market share of the search market, with Bing being its most ambitious effort yet. Well, it seems the battle just got a whole lot dirtier, as The Financial Times has uncovered news that Microsoft has approached several news content providers, offering them money if they "de-index" their sites from Google.
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Member since:2009-08-15
I think you've got that backwards. Without content to index, Google's business is ZILCH. Zip. Nada.
Tom,
I think you've got it wrong. Without exposure by google, any website is ZILCH. zip. Nada. The *primary* reference to commercial websites is Google. Google. Google. Without google, any commercial website can expect it's traffic to drop significantly. Google is the dog. Everybody else are the tails. If you want to make money on the net you need to talk to Google. Here's an idea: why not ask Thom how much traffic to osnews.com comes from Google?
RE[3]: Buisness in the US
by tomcat on Tue 24th Nov 2009 05:44
in reply to "RE[2]: Buisness in the US"
Member since:2006-01-06
Tom,
I think you've got it wrong. Without exposure by google, any website is ZILCH. zip. Nada. The *primary* reference to commercial websites is Google. Google. Google. Without google, any commercial website can expect it's traffic to drop significantly. Google is the dog. Everybody else are the tails. If you want to make money on the net you need to talk to Google. Here's an idea: why not ask Thom how much traffic to osnews.com comes from Google?
I think you've got it wrong. Without exposure by google, any website is ZILCH. zip. Nada. The *primary* reference to commercial websites is Google. Google. Google. Without google, any commercial website can expect it's traffic to drop significantly. Google is the dog. Everybody else are the tails. If you want to make money on the net you need to talk to Google. Here's an idea: why not ask Thom how much traffic to osnews.com comes from Google?
You're missing the point. Newspapers are complaining that click-throughs from Google aren't translating into revenue. It doesn't matter how many people click-through from Google, if they aren't paying the rent. What newsmen want is a way to monetize, and Microsoft is reportedly offering them that. Even if the traffic goes down, they still get more than they were getting from Google. And, as I've mentioned previously, it's unlikely that Google will allow Microsoft to establish exclusive ties to NewsCorp and other commercial news orgs. It doesn't want to take the chance that Microsoft could cut it out of premium news content.
Member since:2005-07-06
If I were a content provider as vast as NewsCorp, I'd tell Google to scr*w themselves
A bit peculiar, that argument. If you were a content provider and there would be no Google to deliver your content as results to user queries, then many users wouldn't know about your content. We're well past that age of the Internet where a few dozen sites provided contents that everyone knew about. Yes, you could advertise in printed media, tv, or street ads, but that wouldn't be as effective. Telling your cash cow to screw itself would mean screwing yourself, which I don't think you're really after.
RE[3]: Buisness in the US
by tomcat on Tue 24th Nov 2009 18:58
in reply to "RE[2]: Buisness in the US"
Member since:2006-01-06
A bit peculiar, that argument. If you were a content provider and there would be no Google to deliver your content as results to user queries, then many users wouldn't know about your content. We're well past that age of the Internet where a few dozen sites provided contents that everyone knew about. Yes, you could advertise in printed media, tv, or street ads, but that wouldn't be as effective. Telling your cash cow to screw itself would mean screwing yourself, which I don't think you're really after.
Most news sites on the Web are fed by a handful of premium news sources (AP, NewsCorp, etc). There is clearly synergy among those organizations to adjust the way that they've been distributing/licensing the news to downstream sites. When that happens, everybody that feeds on them will be affected. At best, they have to pay AP, NewsCorp et al (which is not a bad business); at worst, they don't get the news feeds anymore, AP, NewsCorp make their money through walled gardens, Google doesn't have anything to index (or indexes lower-quality news), and news search is driven through Bing. Moreover, the blogosphere, which primarily feeds on premium news and links directly to articles, would no longer be able to private access to the walled gardens. So, really, no one should pretend that changing distribution models would be a wash -- or a pin prick.
Edited 2009-11-24 19:00 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2006-01-06
I think you've got that backwards. Without content to index, Google's business is ZILCH. Zip. Nada. It doesn't exist. But here's the problem: Google doesn't want to pay NewsCorp -- or practically anyone else -- for the content that makes Google rich. If I were a content provider as vast as NewsCorp, I'd tell Google to scr*w themselves, and try to work an exclusive deal with another search engine -- just like NewsCorp is doing. Believe me: This will get Google's attention. It's going to have to start sharing the revenue stream for premium content, whether it likes it or not.