Chinese Can Only Access Video from State-controlled Companies
You knew it had to happen sooner or later: China is cracking down on Internet video. Under the new regulations, Chinese web surfers will only be able to access video from state-controlled companies. It looks like these regulations will effectively kill user-generated and other video sharing sites. However, as the AP reports, there is some uncertainty there:
Zango’s Got a Secret Crush on Facebook
Zango’s at it again, showing the company will stoop to any level to serve pop-up ads to people that don’t want them. What’s being dubbed by security experts as a malicious social worm is brought to you via Zango and Facebook’s open platform.
Yahoo’s Key To Kill AdSense
The still in testing Yahoo Publisher Network has been touted as a potential disruptive force, once it opens to more publishers.
Did Web Traffic Predict The Iowa Caucus Results?
Is there a correlation between web traffic and the results of the Iowa Caucus? Well, maybe.Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins was half right a couple of days ago, all the way from England. Hopkins measured the Iowa traffic going to different candidate websites and yes indeed Barack Obama beat out Hillary Clinton.
Social Media as a Distraction
Social media is a waste of time. There, I said it. Yesterday, I read a long blog post by a guy I’ve never actually met. Then I read all the comments. Then I left a comment, offering advice he asked for. It made me no money. It gave me no leads. It helped me cross nothing off my to do list. I fell a few minutes “further behind.”
The Data Portability Issue Isn’t Going Away
So Robert Scoble has his account suspended by Facebook for using an automated script to harvest his contacts and their email addresses (see my previous post), and all hell breaks loose. Scoble, whose account is later reinstated, is denounced for being a publicity-seeking limelight hog, and for using a script from Plaxo that is an egregious breach of Facebook’s terms of use (since it uses optical character recognition to grab email addresses, which the site keeps as image files).
Mirroring Websites by Giving Affiliates Subdomains
Question: We were thinking of mirroring our website by giving affiliates subdomains with our content like xyz.oursite.com. Is this a good idea or a duplicate content nightmare?
Facebook Continues To Sell Out Users
There is no expectation of privacy in public, last I checked. If I’m on the sidewalk in my underwear (yes, I’ve been on the sidewalk in my underwear – it was the Rocky Horror midnight show when I was younger and skinnier) it’s kind of hard to get upset when other people see me. So why should Facebook, or any other social (public) network, be different?
Yahoo Pulls Plug On Picks
There are a lot of strange and funny things on the Web, but as of this week, there’s one less place that showcases them; Yahoo Picks has been shut down.
Facebook A Bigger Thief Than Scoble
Even though Robert Scoble has been readmitted to the walled garden of Facebook and forgiven for his scraping, Facebook commits the same offense against other sites.