People are fired in all kinds of rude ways, but they typically don’t make the news. Get fired via Facebook, though, and the world goes “huh?” Crystal Bell, fortunately, wasn’t humiliated via any public communication; her boss sent notice via private message. According to the Calgary Herald, Bell, who’d been employed at a spa only two weeks, skipped a staff meeting on a day she wasn’t scheduled to work.
Email Scams Already Way More Prevalent in ’09
We’re only on day ten of 2009, and MessageLabs (owned by Symantec) is already telling me that it has detected a significant spike in email fraud and financial scams compared to last year. In the first week, messages with subjects like "Congratulations New Year winner! You have won the UK National Lottery" make up nearly 10% of all e-mail, three times what it was in the first two weeks of 2008.
Google University’s School of Personal Growth
The Googleplex already has a reputation as being a kind of Emerald City within Mountain View—pet friendly, masseurs on staff, Lego-topian mindsets—but the best company to work for has kept one perk relatively quiet: Google University’s School of Personal Growth.
Who’s Talkin’ About Social Search?
WhosTalkin.com has launched to the public after residing in private beta for 7 months. What’s WhosTalkin.com you ask? It’s a social media search engine that allows users to search across a number of social networking sites, blogs, news sites, forums, etc. And it’s pretty cool.
Ask Shows Off Its Advanced Semantic Search
Remember Ask? You know, the search engine with the Butler. While the company doesn’t get brought up in the discussion as much as it once did, it has not surrendered to Google and it’s other competitors just yet. Ask has now announced some advances in its semantic search technology. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Semantic Search, Wikipedia explains it:
LinkedIn Upgrades Search Interface
LinkedIn puts its current user base at about 33 million, and as such, it’s easy to believe that the odds of finding professionals with even remotely common names are beyond slim. The site’s trying to keep this from happening, though, with some interesting new search upgrades.
A List of Google’s Money Making Products
Below overview checks which Google products directly make money for Google in terms of being paid for by the user, or having ads or affiliate links. Indirect effects on revenues (as well as some other things) are disregarded for this purpose, but not because the effects are necessarily neglible.* The table is just an estimate – if you see ommissions or misses please comment and I’ll update the table.
eMarketer: UK Social Networks Attractive To Advertisers
Indicators that times are tough shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and a new report from eMarketer suggests that some advertisers will respond by making cutbacks. The research and analysis company took a close look at a few social networks, though, and believes advertisers in the UK won’t turn their backs on them too much.
Is Your Press Center Holding Back Marketing Opportunities?
Covering industry news, naturally I read a lot of press releases. Sometimes they’re sent directly to me or our news team as a whole, sometimes I find them online through PR wires, and sometimes I will find them on the companies’ websites.
Unemployed A Big Spam/Phishing Target In 2009
Expect more sophisticated spamming in 2009. And thanks to the economy, an increase in scams targeting the down and out, the tax-rebate hopeful, and the noble yet digitally naïve pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps market.